Dr David Evans: The Skeptic’s Case

A new brief summary of the reasoning and evidence behind the skeptics case. –Jo

———————————————

The Skeptic’s Case

Who Are You Going To Believe – The Government Climate Scientists Or The Data?

Guest Post Dr David M.W. Evans

We check the main predictions of the climate models against the best and latest data. Fortunately the climate models got all their major predictions wrong. Why? Every serious skeptical scientist has been consistently saying essentially the same thing for over 20 years, yet most people have never heard the message — here it is, put simply enough for any lay reader willing to pay attention.

What the Government Climate Scientists Say

Figure 1: The climate models. If the CO2 level doubles (as it is on course to do by about 2070 to 2100), the climate models estimate the temperature increase due to that extra CO2 will be about 1.1°C × 3 = 3.3°C. [1]

The direct effect of CO2 is well-established physics, based on laboratory results, and known for over a century.[2]

Feedbacks are due to the ways the Earth reacts to the direct warming effect of the CO2. The threefold amplification by feedbacks is based on the assumption, or guess, made around 1980, that more warming due to CO2 will cause more evaporation from the oceans and that this extra water vapor will in turn lead to even more heat trapping because water vapor is the main greenhouse gas. And extra heat will cause even more evaporation, and so on. This amplification is built into all the climate models.[3] The amount of amplification is estimated by assuming that nearly all the industrial-age warming is due to our CO2.

The government climate scientists and the media often tell us about the direct effect of the CO2, but rarely admit that two thirds of their projected temperature increases are due to amplification by feedbacks. They admit there are discrepancies, and go to great lengths to resolve them (see for example, Thorne, Dessler, Sherwood).

What the Skeptics Say

Figure 2: The skeptic’s view. If the CO2 level doubles, skeptics estimates that the temperature increase due to that extra CO2 will be about 1.1°C × 0.5 ≈ 0.6°C.[4]

The serious skeptical scientists have always agreed with the government climate scientists about the direct effect of CO2. The argument is entirely about the feedbacks.

The feedbacks dampen or reduce the direct effect of the extra CO2, cutting it roughly in half.[5] The main feedbacks involve evaporation, water vapor, and clouds. In particular, water vapor condenses into clouds, so extra water vapor due to the direct warming effect of extra CO2 will cause extra clouds, which reflect sunlight back out to space and cool the earth, thereby reducing the overall warming.

There are literally thousands of feedbacks, each of which either reinforces or opposes the direct warming effect of the extra CO2. Almost every long-lived system is governed by net feedback that dampens its response to a perturbation. If a system instead reacts to a perturbation by amplifying it, the system is likely to reach a tipping point and become unstable (like the electronic squeal that erupts when a microphone gets too close to its speakers). The earth’s climate is long-lived and stable— it has never gone into runaway greenhouse, unlike Venus — which strongly suggests that the feedbacks dampen temperature perturbations such as that from extra CO2.

What the Data Says

The climate models have been essentially the same for 30 years now, maintaining roughly the same sensitivity to extra CO2 even while they got more detailed with more computer power.

How well have the climate models predicted the temperature?

Does the data better support the climate models or the skeptic’s view?

Air Temperatures

One of the earliest and most important predictions was presented to the US Congress in 1988 by Dr James Hansen, the “father of global warming”:

Figure 3: Hansen’s predictions [6] to the US Congress in 1988, compared to the subsequent temperatures as measured by NASA satellites [7]>.

Hansen’s climate model clearly exaggerated future temperature rises.

In particular, his climate model predicted that if human CO2 emissions were cut back drastically starting in 1988, such that by year 2000 the CO2 level was not rising at all, we would get his scenario C. But in reality the temperature did not even rise this much, even though our CO2 emissions strongly increased – which suggests that the climate models greatly overestimate the effect of CO2 emissions.

A more considered prediction by the climate models was made in 1990 in the IPCC’s First Assessment Report:[8]

Figure 4: Predictions of the IPCC’s First Assessment Report in 1990, compared to the subsequent temperatures as measured by NASA satellites.

It’s 20 years now, and the average rate of increase in reality is below the lowest trend in the range predicted by the IPCC.

Ocean Temperatures

The oceans hold the vast bulk of the heat in the climate system. We’ve only been measuring ocean temperature properly since mid-2003, when the Argo system became operational.[9] [10] In Argo, a buoy duck dives down to a depth of 2,000 meters, measures temperatures as it very slowly ascends, then radios the results back to headquarters via satellite. Over three thousand Argo buoys constantly patrol all the oceans of the world.

The ocean temperature has been basically flat since we started measuring it properly, and not warming as quickly as the climate models predict.

Atmospheric Hotspot

The climate models predict a particular pattern of atmospheric warming during periods of global warming; the most prominent change they predict is a warming in the tropics about 10 km up, the “hotspot”.

The hotspot is the sign of the amplification in their theory (see Figure 1). The theory says the hotspot is caused by extra evaporation, and by extra water vapor pushing the warmer wetter lower troposphere up into volume previously occupied by cool dry air. The presence of a hotspot would indicate amplification is occurring, and vice versa.

We have been measuring atmospheric temperatures with weather balloons since the 1960s. Millions of weather balloons have built up a good picture of atmospheric temperatures over the last few decades, including the warming period from the late 70’s to the late 90s. This important and pivotal data was not released publicly by the climate establishment until 2006, and then in an obscure place.[13] Here it is:

Figure 6: On the left is the data collected by millions of weather balloons.[14] On the right is what the climate models say was happening.<[15] The theory (as per the climate models) is incompatible with the observations. In both diagrams the horizontal axis shows latitude, and the right vertical axis shows height in kilometers.

In reality there was no hotspot, not even a small one. So in reality there is no amplification – the amplification shown in Figure 1 does not exist.[16] Even

Outgoing Radiation

The climate models predict that when the surface of the earth warms, less heat is radiated from the earth into space (on a weekly or monthly time scale). This is because, according to the theory, the warmer surface causes more evaporation and thus there is more heat-trapping water vapor. This is the heat-trapping mechanism that is responsible for the assumed amplification in Figure 1.

Satellites have been measuring the radiation emitted from the earth for the last two decades. A major study has linked the changes in temperature on the earth’s surface with the changes in the outgoing radiation. Here are the results:

Figure 7: Outgoing radiation from earth (vertical axis) against sea surface temperature (horizontal), as measured by the ERBE satellites (upper left graph) and as “predicted” by 11 climate models (the other graphs).[17] Notice that the slope of the graphs for the climate models are opposite to the slope of the graph for the observed data.

This shows that in reality the earth gives off more heat when its surface is warmer. This is the opposite of what the climate models predict. This shows that the climate models trap heat too aggressively, and that their assumed amplification shown in Figure 1 does not exist.

Conclusions

All the data here is impeccably sourced — from satellites, the Argo buoys, and weather balloons.[18]

The air and ocean temperature data shows that the climate models overestimate temperature rises. The climate establishment suggest that cooling due to undetected aerosols might be responsible for the failure of the models to date, but this excuse is wearing thin—it continues not to warm as much as they said it would, or in the way they said it would. On the other hand, the rise in air temperature has been greater than the skeptics say could be due to CO2. The skeptic’s excuse is that the rise is mainly due to other forces – and they point out that the world has been in a fairly steady warming trend of 0.5°C per century since 1680 (with alternating ~30 year periods of warming and mild cooling) where as the vast bulk of all human CO2 emissions have been after 1945.

We’ve checked all the main predictions of the climate models against the best data:

Test

Climate Models

Air temperatures from 1988

Over-estimated rise, even if CO2 is drastically cut

Air temperatures from 1990

Over-estimated trend rise

Ocean temperatures from 2003

Over-estimated trend rise greatly

Atmospheric hotspot

Completely missing — no amplification

Outgoing radiation

Opposite to reality — no amplification

The climate models get them all wrong. The missing hotspot and outgoing radiation data both, independently, prove that the amplification in the climate models is not present. Without the amplification, the climate model temperature predictions would be cut by at least two thirds, which would explain why they overestimated the recent air and ocean temperature increases. Therefore:

The climate models are fundamentally flawed. Their assumed threefold amplification by feedbacks does not in fact exist.

The climate models overestimate temperature rises due to CO2 by at least a factor of three.

The skeptical view is compatible with the data.

Some Political Points

The data presented here is impeccably sourced, very relevant, publically available, and from our best instruments. Yet it never appears in the mainstream media – have you ever seen anything like any of the figures here in the mainstream media? That alone tells you that the “debate” is about politics and power, and not about science or truth.

This is an unusual political issue, because there is a right and a wrong answer and everyone will know what it is eventually. People are going ahead and emitting CO2 anyway, so we are doing the experiment: either the world heats up by several degrees by 2050 or so, or it doesn’t.

Notice that the skeptics agree with the government climate scientists about the direct effect of CO2; they just disagree just about the feedbacks. The climate debate is all about the feedbacks; everything else is merely a sideshow. Yet hardly anyone knows that. The government climate scientists and the mainstream media have framed the debate in terms of the direct effect of CO2 and sideshows such as arctic ice, bad weather, and psychology. They almost never mention the feedbacks. Why is that? Who has the power to make that happen?

About the Author

Dr David M.W. Evans consulted full-time for the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change) from 1999 to 2005, and part-time 2008 to 2010, modeling Australia’s carbon in plants, debris, mulch, soils, and forestry and agricultural products. Evans is a mathematician and engineer, with six university degrees including a PhD from Stanford University in electrical engineering. The area of human endeavor with the most experience and sophistication in dealing with feedbacks and analyzing complex systems is electrical engineering, and the most crucial and disputed aspects of understanding the climate system are the feedbacks. The evidence supporting the idea that CO2 emissions were the main cause of global warming reversed itself from 1998 to 2006, causing Evans to move from being a warmist to a skeptic.

REFERENCES

[1] More generally, if the CO2 level is x (in parts per million) then the climate models estimate the temperature increase due to the extra CO2 over the pre-industrial level of 280 ppm as 4.33 ln(x / 280). For example, this model attributes a temperature rise of 4.33 ln(392/280) = 1.46°C to the increase from pre-industrial to the current CO2 level of 392 ppm.

[2] The direct effect of CO2 is the same for each doubling of the CO2 level (that is, logarithmic). Calculations of the increased surface temperature due to of a doubling of the CO2 level vary from 1.0°C to 1.2°C. In this document we use the midpoint value 1.1°C; which value you use does not affect the arguments made here.

[3] The IPCC, in their last Assessment Report in 2007, project a temperature increase for a doubling of CO2 (called the climate sensitivity) in the range 2.0°C to 4.5°C. The central point of their model estimates is 3.3°C, which is 3.0 times the direct CO2 effect of 1.1°C, so we simply say their amplification is threefold. To be more precise, each climate model has a slightly different effective amplification, but they are generally around 3.0.

[4] More generally, if the CO2 level is x (in parts per million) then skeptics estimate the temperature increase due to the extra CO2 over the pre-industrial level of 280 ppm as 0.72 ln(x / 280). For example, skeptics attribute a temperature rise of 0.72 ln(392/280) = 0.24°C to the increase from pre-industrial to the current CO2 level of 392 ppm.

[5] The effect of feedbacks is hard to pin down with empirical evidence because there are more forces affecting the temperature than just changes in CO2 level, but seems to be multiplication by something between 0.25 and 0.9. We have used 0.5 here for simplicity.

[6] Hansen’s predictions were made in Hansen et al, Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol 93 No D8 (20 Aug 1988) Fig 3a Page 9347: pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988_Hansen_etal.pdf. In the graph here, Hansen’s three scenarios are graphed to start from the same point in mid-1987.

[7] The earth’s temperature shown here is as measured by the NASA satellites that have been measuring the earth’s temperature since 1979, managed at the University of Alabama Hunstville (UAH). Satellites measure the temperature 24/7 over broad swathes of land and ocean, across the whole world except the poles. While satellites had some initial calibration problems, those have long since been fully fixed to everyone’s satisfaction. Satellites are mankind’s most reliable, extensive, and unbiased method for measuring the earth’s air temperature temperatures since 1979. This is an impeccable source of data, and you can download the data yourself from vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt (save it as .txt file then open it in Microsoft Excel; the numbers in the “Globe” column are the changes in MSU Global Monthly Mean Lower Troposphere Temperatures in °C).

[8] IPCC First Assessment Report, 1990, page xxii (www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/far/wg_I/ipcc_far_wg_I_full_report.pdf) in the Policymakers Summary, Figure 8 and surrounding text, for the business-as-usual scenario (which is what in fact occurred, there being no significant controls or decrease in the rate of increase of emissions to date). “Under the IPCC Business-as-Usual (Scenario A) emissions of greenhouse gases, the average rate of increase of global mean temperature during the next century is estimated to be about 0.3°C per decade (with an uncertainty range of 0.2°C to 0.5°C).”

[10] Ocean temperature measurements before Argo are nearly worthless. Before Argo, ocean temperature was measured with buckets or with bathythermographs (XBTs) — which are expendable probes lowered into the water, transmitting temperature and pressure data back along a pair of thin wires. Nearly all measurements were from ships along the main commercial shipping lanes, so geographical coverage of the world’s oceans was poor—for example the huge southern oceans were not monitored. XBTs do not go as deep as Argo floats, and their data is much less precise and much less accurate (for one thing, they move too quickly through the water to come to thermal equilibrium with the water they are trying to measure).

There is no other data for this period, and we cannot collect more data on atmospheric warming during global warming until global warming resumes. This is the only data there is. Btw, isn’t this an obscure place to release such important and pivotal data – you don’t suppose they are trying to hide something, do you?

[18] In particular, we have not quoted results from land thermometers, or from sparse sampling by buckets and XBT’s at sea. Land thermometers are notoriously susceptible to localized effects – see Is the Western Climate Establishment Corrupt? by the same author: jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/corruption/climate-corruption.pdf.

782 comments to Dr David Evans: The Skeptic’s Case

Very interesting. I’m confused by figure 7. It shows that satellite measurements of outgoing radiation from earth show an increase as the sea surface temperature increases. But it then shows all the models predicting otherwise.

Since a warmer object emits greater radiation, why do the models predict otherwise?

John, The whole premise of Catastrophic Man made global Warming is based on the so called “greenhouse effect” trapping more heat down here on earth. If the incomming solar radiation is constant, as also assumed in the models, then according to thermodynamic theory, if more is heat retained on earth, as indicated by the rising temperatures, then less energy must be exiting the top of the atmosphere (TOA). The fact that, more heat exits the TOA as the earths temperature goes up shows that the basic assumptions of the models with respect to the “Energy Balance” of the earth’s atmoshere and to the way the “greenhouse effect” is supposed to work is wrong. In any other field of scientific study, such a glaring divergence between hypothesis and actual real world evidence would mean it would be discarded. The fact that it continues on as if nothing has happened shows that it is now more akin to religious dogma than scientific theory.

Yes you sure are – you cannot distinguish physical reality from virtual reality that the models represent. You place primacy on the models and that is the problem, the whole problem and all of the problem.

In your reaction we have the problem identified in a manner never before – you are at a loss when confronted with physical reality contradicting your belief (here the climate models).

It means you have no understanding, and by implication none of your fellow AGW supporters, of the scientific method.

When the models say “A” but physical reality results in “B”, then the models are in error and need changing.

It means that the assumptions that the models are based on, are wrong.

But the religious mind rejects this because Faith is stronger than reality.

What becomes even more disturbing is when you finally realize that this is a THREE SIDED ‘DEBATE’ and that two sides are wrong. The footnote [2] mentions direct effect of CO2 being known for a century. In fact, what has been known since Dr Robert Woods experiment of 1909 is that even GREENHOUSES DO NOT BEHAVE LIKE ‘GREENHOUSE GASES’. A free moving, three atom, naturally occuring and mandatory for life gas molecule has NO ABAILITY to capture (for more than a few milliseconds), to reflect, or to redirect outgoing photons moving at the speed of light. Carbon Dioxide molecules merely vibrate as this outgoing energy passes. The Warmists wrongly claim that CO2 is the primary climate driver. The Luke Warmists claim that CO2 is only a partial driver. Traditional Physics and Realists prove that there is NO potential for any level of CO2 to effect the planets temperature. The sole purpose of this Faux Science of AGW has been to force an unneeded and false Carbon Commodity Market on a guilable and grossly miseducated public. It is a patently false construct to insist that this ‘debate’ must assume any level of CO2 warming.

Because CO2 molecules scatter IR they increase the impedance to IR transmission to space. Also the probability of the IR being absorbed at second phases is increased, so there will be some warming.

As the CO2 IR bands are saturated near the Earth’s surface, the phenomenon of self-absorption may reduce emissivity and absorptivity of the atmosphere facing the surface thus reducing IR impedance. Hence net CO2 climate sensitivity may now be slightly negative.

John – when I realised that AGW was a crock of … it was gut wrenching, literally wanted to throw up.

The problem you have is in your epistemology – how do you determine what you know. The normal scientific process is to discard refuted theories. With all the political and financial capital invested into AGW – it will not die so easily. But at this point you have a real choice, to clean up your mind and start living in a reference frame where measured physical reality trumps theory – or continue as you are.

OK, I’m less confused now. For starters, I didn’t realise how the graphs in figure 7 had been generated. They are from Lindzen & Choi, each dot represents a particular time interval, for example 1989 – 1990. These time intervals appear to have been chosen because sea surface temperature rose from (roughly) a local minimum to a local maximum during each interval.

The trouble is that Lindzen & Choi’s analysis is very sensitive to the start and end points of each interval. Shift them by a month or so, and everything changes.

Anyway, those good people at Real Climate provide a thorough explanation of why Messrs L & C are wrong.

Just thought I would point out that that link you just posted is from 8 January 2010 and is a response to Lindzen & Choi (2009). I note that you chose very carefully to ignore the fact that there was a revised paper published Lindzen & Choi 2011 which was published in response to the criticms against it making the reference….out of date at the very least.

What do you think warmists like Trenberth would say? Oh thank you Lindzen and Choi for correcting our understanding of the nature of feedbacks. We will now resign from our cushy jobs. Of course not. That is their understanding of how things work.

Lindzen and Choi accepted the criticism of restricted data (tropics) and included more general data in 2011 with no change in their conclusion about climate sensitivity. The other major criticisms are only valid if you accept the IPCC understanding of the science.

Thus the trolls in response are in effect saying nothing more than this is what my champion believes. We know all about these data manipulators and we, along with more credible scientists, who keep their scientific integrity, are not at all impressed, unlike you trolls.

We could flip a coin on who is right and who is wrong on this issue if we found the points of difference in the “theory” beyond our grasp.

A more useful approach, for the advancement of climate science, is to ask if either the alarmist scientists, who postulate a certain range of potentially dangerous climate sensitivities, or L & C, Spencer, Christy et al, whose understanding of feedback mechanisms is fundamentally different, have completely nailed it and have all the answers yet?

That said there seems little doubt that the weight of the present observable evidence favours a much lower climate sensitivity than the IPCC paradigm gives.

Perhaps young John not being a properly acclimatised Aussie, your brain is responding to warm 40C temperatures in an un-Australian way. Whatever the cause of your flip flopping what you obviously need now is a bona fide authority figure.

We skeptics, unlike alarmist camp followers aka trolls by skeptics when they seek out our intellectually stimulating company, are not so much into authority figures.

The problem we skeptics have with the sort of alarmist climate scientists trotted out and quoted as argument settlers is that in most cases they are no smarter than the trolls who more often than not quote them irrelevantly or out of context but it would hardly matter even if the context was right. The reality is they seem to be a pretty dumb lot (did you see the youtube encounter featuring the brain – power – outmatched Dessler toyed with by Lindzen?) and don’t cut it with skeptics.

Skeptics would probably accept I. Newton as the bees knees as lots of his stuff has gone from HYPOTHESIS to THEORY and is now enshrined in LAW.

Perhaps there will never be another Newton but here’s about the 21C next best thing. So without further ado let me present:

Freeman Dyson, Professor Emeritus of the School of Natural Sciences, Institute for Advanced Study; Fellow of the Royal Society said in a 2011 email exchange with a journalist:

“First, the computer models are very good at solving the equations of fluid dynamics but very bad at describing the real world. The real world is full of things like clouds and vegetation and soil and dust which the models describe very poorly.

Second, we do not know whether the recent changes in climate are on balance doing more harm than good. The strongest warming is in cold places like Greenland. More people die from cold in winter than die from heat in summer.

Third, there are many other causes of climate change besides human activities, as we know from studying the past.

Fourth, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is strongly coupled with other carbon reservoirs in the biosphere, vegetation and top-soil, which are as large or larger. It is misleading to consider only the atmosphere and ocean, as the climate models do, and ignore the other reservoirs.

Fifth, the biological effects of CO2 in the atmosphere are beneficial, both to food crops and to natural vegetation. The biological effects are better known and probably more important than the climatic effects. Sixth, summing up the other five reasons, the climate of the earth is an immensely complicated system and nobody is close to understanding it.”[7] wiki

John,
you are meant to be confused. Dr Evans has chosen to start his first graph in the middle of an El Nino (hot) and ended it in a La Nina (cold)causing a distortion in the rate of increase.
Further, the actual trend data for all major temperature put the reality measure at 0.35-0.5 not 0 as indicated on the graph.

His point is invalid because, he didn’t start the graph on the trend line, but on an extreme positive point on the graph. He didn’t provide trend lines which would have invalidated his point. The Nile data miners can always find some data that purportedly suits their argument but the truth is it doesn’t stand up to simple scrutiny. Dr Evans has enough qualifications to know evidence from cherry picking. This is cherry picking.

Look David, using The Nile as a corruption of Denier is treating us as fools. Start treating others with some respect. You got it? Mod oggi

REPLY: DavidR – it’s impossible to know which graph you refer too. What “extreme point”? If you throw serious allegations, do them carefully and with specific detail, no more vague “evidence”. David E started all of his graphs at the point the prediction was made, or at the earliest possible data point available. If you have calculations of trend lines that show Hansen, IPCC, or ARGO fit with the predictions, then detail them. The alarm-team made predictions knowing it was an El nino year, presumably they were smart enough to adjust their forecasts to compensate, right? A fail is a fail. — Jo

Jo:
As stated above I am referring to the first graph. 1988 was the hottest year on record up to that point being about 0.2 above the trend line on all the major data sets particularly UAH.. If Dr Evans provided a trend line for the UAH data it would show ~ 0.4 degrees of warming over the period not the fairly flat trend he is implying.

[snip comment about mod.]

REPLY: UAH Data? Why not. This earlier graph below with UAH Data makes it easier to see David’s point. Hansen has the data to 1988, he knew exactly where it was on the normal spread. He made the prediction knowing the two decades leading up to it. Hansen thought 1988 was a “middle of the range year” compared to what was to come. It wasn’t: — Jo

Calm down Tristan,
“UAH does not measure surface temperature, it measures the lower troposphere, which is usually slightly cooler than the surface.”
We’re measuring trends from a zero point anomaly, not absolutes. It’s not about which one was colder to start with, it’s about the trend. In any case, UAH is a better dataset. If the UAH trend is lower than than the surface data that could be because the surface data is so horribly corrupted(UHI, micrositing, lost data, station changes, airports, concrete blah blah blah).

Plotting UAH data on a graph that measures surface temperature is misleading.

Claiming that Scenario A is what occurred is misleading.

Claiming that the surface data is horribly corrupted is misleading. If you recall the history of the UAH, you’ll note the numerous egregious errors committed by Spencer and pals, and with every error caught, the UAH trend moved closer to that evidenced by the surface measurements. The surface temperature records have been exhaustively audited by many groups and individuals. No one has found any of the corruptions you describe and the team sent to find evidence of UHI gave us a paper demonstrating no such issue.

Whichever why you look at it, Hansen told Congress in 1988 that the world would be 0.8C higher in 2010 if CO2 emissions kept increasing. He was wrong.

He did not.

I did not get an email from you. As I said in my reply to your comment in another thread, I like my money where it is.

Claiming that Hansen’s emissions scenario A is what actually occurred is a blatant misrepresentation of the facts.

Hansens scenario A is BUSINESS AS USUAL, which is exactly what has happened in the real world, business as usual. In fact, all the Mauna Loa CO2 charts show steady relentless increase in CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
Unless you can show us data that’s different, your claim is false, a BLATANT MISREPRESENTATION IN FACT.
Alternatively, you may wish to show us data that indicates less than expected HUMAN EMISSIONS. But then you’d have to explain the Mauna Loa data with natural emissions won’t you.

See that? Relentless increase in CO2 content.

Using UAH data when Hansens’s predictions were for surface temperature is another blatant misrepresentation.

What should have been used, Hansens data from GISS? You expect us to verify a blokes predictions with that very same blokes data? You may be a sucker fool Tristan, we’re not.

The GHG forcings due to emissions (which is what the scenarios are modelling) that actually occurred were lower than the scenario B projection.

Oh really? Do you mean to say Hansen got the GHG forcings all wrong? That means he got the temperature predictions wrong as can be seen from the graph in the post, he got the emissions scenarios wrong as can be seen from the Mauna Loa data, and now you reckon he got the forcings wrong. A trifecta. What exactly did Hansen get right Tristan?
But of course you are wrong. Here is what Hansen says about scenario B in section 4.1 of his paper (pp9343)

“Scenario B has DECREASING trace gas GROWTH RATES, such that the annual increase of the greenhouse climate forcing remains approximately constant at the present level.”

Well, as I’ve shown with the Mauna Lua chart, we haven’t had a “decreasing” growth rate in trace gas, we had a steady growth rate. If Hansen had of graphed temperatures from a steady growth rate, the line would have fallen between scenarios A and B wouldn’t it?
But you’re talking about the “forcing” from the trace gas. In which case, Hansen had his forcings all wrong, meaning his testimony to congress in 1988 was bunkum. So Tristan agrees that Hansens prediction to congress in 1988 was wrong.

UAH does not measure surface temperature, it measures the lower troposphere, which is usually slightly cooler than the surface.

Oh really? All this time we’ve been told that warming from GHGs will be HIGHER in the troposphere than at the surface.

The above from Skeptical Science (lol) have a look at charts C and F Tristan. That’s what’s supposed to happen from GHG warming. The troposphere warmer than the surface, yet in your enthusiasm to protect a charlatan named Hansen, you’re now telling us that that’s all assbackwards, that “the lower troposphere, which is usually slightly cooler than the surface.” Have you told the denizens of IPCC that they’ve got their science assbackwards Tristan?

But you know all these things Tristan. What I don’t get is why you’re misleading people in order to protect the failed predictions of an activist who ceased to be a scientist long ago. Surely there are many other climate subjects you can use up your reserves of distortions and lies on.

Hansen’s scenarios each represent a certain rate of Carbon emissions. Whether you like it or not, the Carbon emissions that occurred fall between the B and C scenarios, despite the lack of ‘action’ taken.

What should have been used, Hansens data from GISS?

That would be a sensible choice.

What exactly did Hansen get right Tristan?

His understanding of forcing:temperature/time was groundbreaking and quite accurate.

The above from Skeptical Science (lol) have a look at charts C and F Tristan. That’s what’s supposed to happen from GHG warming.

Actually it’s supposed to happen due to any warming, it’s not actually related to AGW specifically. Currently the long-term hotspot appears difficult to unravel from all the noise but I figure it’ll be revealed in the coming decade.

Actually it’s supposed to happen due to any warming, it’s not actually related to AGW specifically

Tristan do you actually read what’s been posted, pause a short while and digest it?
For you to make the above statement, you’d have to be an automaton that just repeats claims without any thoought going into it.

Look, let me make it very clear and unequivocal for you.

THE GRAPH IS FROM THE IPCC AR4. IT WAS TAKEN FROM THE SkS SITE.
THE F’ING CAPTION FOR CHART C SAYS…

(c) greenhouse gases,

DO YOU COMPREHEND THAT TRISTAN? IT DOESN’T SAY ANY WARMING, IT SAYS GHGs.

Yet here you are claiming it’s from any warming. Either you are a total moron, or you are purposfully lying to cover your sorry ass that I paddled.

It’s easy to understand how a scam such as AGW perpetuates. [snip inflammatory]
If your whole purpose on these blogs is to waste peoples time and cause distruption with your inane comments and outright bold faced lies, all I can tell you is to take a long hard look at yourself in the mirror and reflect a little on your existence in life when you go to bed tonight.

Oh, and try to lie straight in bed. It’ll be difficult at first, but practice practice practice.

More accurately, that is what was predicted to occur given the level of forcing from GHGs alone. We’d expect an identical signal from forcing due to solar activity, were solar activity equally strong. As far as the trop is concerned, warming is warming. The stratosphere differentiates.

Tristan: Repeat after me, yes, all causes of warming would lead to a hot spot. It didn’t happen. 28 million radiosondes tell you so. Either that means a/ their amplification assumptions are wrong, or b/ the world hasn’t warmed as much as the surface stations show. Would you like to be caned with a or caned with b?

Both scenarios are a failure for Team-catastrophe. You can’t win either way.

Now ask yourself why your team didn’t explicitly tell you (in their 2006 or 2007 reports that their supposed “fingerprint” or “signature” (their term) was not unique – at the time, they said “greenhouse gases”? Leading you up the path…

Their climate models predicted we would get a hot spot. Their models are wrong. Only the weather-balloon-deniers still pretend that millions of repeated calibrated measurements were wrong and that the mystery (non-unique) hot spot is hidden up there.

And regarding the bet, if you’re not willing to buy the gold now there’s no point hammering out the details.

More accurately, it has not been directly observed. One response to this, from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (including one John Christy) is:

Almost all model simulations show more warming in the troposphere than at the surface. This difference between models and observations may arise from errors that are common to all models, from errors in the observational data sets, or from a combination of these factors. The second explanation is favored, but the issue is still open.

Indirect observations of wind and precipitation support the existence of a warm troposphere at the tropics.

Either that means a/ their amplification assumptions are wrong, or b/ the world hasn’t warmed as much as the surface stations show. Would you like to be caned with a or caned with b?

A) The idea of a warmer troposphere at the tropics is simply a result of the MALR.
B) There isn’t a whole lot of discrepancy between the trends fromUAH and GISS so I’m not sure why you harp on so much about the surface data.

Checking on Hansens’ paper we find that the projections were made based on the data up until 1984 so Hansen would have had no idea what the data would have been like in 1988. Once again the trend line not the hottest year on record should have been the starting point of Dr Evans analysis.

—-REPLY: Excuses Excuses. Hansens graph plots data after 1984. If he was too lazy to run his models with newer data that just shows how careless he was. David wasn’t starting the graph from 1988 in any case. He writes in his notes: “In the graph here, Hansen’s three scenarios are graphed to start from the same point in mid-1987″. Jo

You are once again employing the trick of base-lining data at a single point, rather than to a significant period of time, and hence giving a false impression of divergence. A view of ocean heat content, with more context, for example, completely contradicts your claims.

Finally, in regards to climate sensitivity, the lead of your article, it’s well worth looking at Knutti and Hegerl (2008), a review of many works in the field, agreeing on a most likely climate sensitivity in the range of 2-4.5°C. Your claimed 0.5°C sensitivity is inconsistent with all of the data. If the climate responded with that sensitivity, we would never have had ice age swings – the changes in insolation are only sufficient to cause ice ages and interglacials with about a 3°C sensitivity.

Unless you are claiming that the ice ages never happened…

—

Overall, your article is (in my opinion) a heavily distorted political puff piece, a near copy of your earlier post, which had similar issues. Very sad.

Also, the amplification of tsi increase at the end of ice ages has nothing to do with CO2 because it starts 2 ky earlier than any major change of CO2. The same mechanism accounts for much present Arctic melting, now reversing in its 50-70 year cycle. You prove it by this: http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/figure-101.png

The cooling of the N. Atlantic is because the cloud albedo decrease over the Arctic region [caused by phytoplankton blooms] is reversing and the sinking of warmed ice melt water [density inversion] which has warmed the N. Atlantic is slowing. The Russians think that by 2020 the Arctic will be back at year 1900 temperatures. You can’t get N. Atlantic cooling by CO2-AGW and this warming accounts for most post 1990 OHC change.

As for the true GHG-GW, correct the CO2 IR physics by putting in self absorption at IR band saturation near the Earth’s surface and CO2-GW is probably slightly negative at present, but it could have been higher in the past.

The assumption of 100% direct thermalisation [there is no mechanism for energy transfer to non-GHGs]

Time for a CO2 molecule to relax orbitals and emit IR is ~10^-6 seconds. At sea level pressure that CO2 molecule will undergo ~10^9 collisions.

That means that an energized CO2 (or H20, or CH4) molecule has on the order of 1000 collisions before it can emit excess energy. That’s the direct mechanism – molecular collisions exchanging vibrational and translational energy. Greenhouse gases are at the same temperature as the gases they are mixed with, with energy exchange via collisions occurring much more frequently than radiative transfers.

It’s highly likely that the IR energy can’t be transferred collision by collision because it’s quantised – only transferable to another asymmetrical molecule, not N2 or O2. This is standard physics in advanced textbooks. I suggest you get acquainted with the statistical thermodynamics including the Law of Equipartition of Energy and the concept of Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium.

In 1993, Will Happer, an IR specialist, resigned as Director of Research of the US DoE because he refused to lie about this physics. His comment was ‘I don’t need the money’. As with Lindzen in 1988 when he warned that the modellers had got it wrong about high feedback, Happer was ignored.

Climate science has clearly adopted an attitude that once an idea has been accepted by peer review, it cannot be overturned. Thus Tyndall’s mistake was not to understand that CO2 has high CTE in the range 250 – 350 K because that’s the temperature range where the long wavelength IR absorption develops in association with a 13.1% increase in Cp.

Thus the ‘PET bottle experiment’ probably shows the effect of pressurisation and warming of the container walls by scattered IR, not direct thermalisation. The real physics is buried in partial molar Cp data and van der Waal’s coefficients. Nasif Nahle is studying this.

There could be some direct thermalisation but my view is that it is likely to be mostly indirect at aerosol second phases, cloud droplets that have gettered local CO2 and bare aerosols.

I could be wrong but I’m quite pleased at predicting why the North Atlantic is cooling; that disproves the IPCC case better than any other experimental measurement. South Atlantic OHC for the reversed latitude is static indicating it’s an Arctic-only effect.

this comment by KR really deserves to be elevated to its own thread and given a good Australian lampooning. Tag it under the “so silly it’s not even wrong” file. The only thing missing is a link to Gomer Pyle et al 1963.

KR you seem to have completely ignored the fact shown in this article that all satellite measurements of outgoing radiation showed it to increase and not decrease.
see Lindzen and Choi 2011

If the climate responded with that sensitivity, we would never have had ice age swings – the changes in insolation are only sufficient to cause ice ages and interglacials with about a 3°C sensitivity.

Unless you are claiming that the ice ages never happened…

That is complete nonsense. In all of the interglacials the co2 increase was an effect of the temperature rise. The sensitivity of the climate to natural forcings says absolutely nothing about the sensitivity to Co2. I suggest that that you read the following papers, which show how co2 did not play a major role in glacial, interglcial changes.
‘In defense of Milankovick’ by Gerard Roe

The amplification of tsi increase at the end of the last ice age was almost certainly from reduction of cloud albedo starting 2 ky before any significant CO2 rise. It manifested itself as warming of the deep Southern Ocean, restarting the deep currents.

3.5% fall in albedo = 2.88 W/m^2 quoted by AR4 as the total GHG warming from the LGM to the pre-industrial age. No CO2 is needed, it’s a lagging indicator and it could presently be slightly net negative. Most recent warming has probably been natural, and it’s reversing.

There is absolutely no unambiguous experimental proof of any CO2-GW, but there could have been some, a maximum of 15% of the IPCC’s central claim. You get that by setting ‘cloud albedo effect’ cooling to zero [it could be slightly positive] and reduce present GHG warming offset by cloud cooling to 9 K.

The warmists hate it when I write this because they know I’m winding them up outrageously but they also know from the liberties they have taken with the truth that I could well be right!

Lindzen and Choi 2011 is indeed an interesting article – it’s a virtual copy of the two (three?) previous versions of his work, all of which have received a very poor reception. There are multiple papers offering refutations, and I found the GRL reviewers comments (on the last rejection, shortly before L&C submitted it to an off-topic journal) both enlightening and in the main along the lines of my own impressions (prior to reading the reviewers comments).

L&C (whatever version) use arbitrarily chosen time periods (periods different by merely days give completely different results), continue to approximate the extratropic regions with a scaling factor of x2 (heat transport in/out of the tropics is an order of magnitude greater than the imbalance they discuss, and polar regions won’t necessarily react as tropics do), and failed to answer any of the major questions posed in the various refutations.

In all of the interglacials the co2 increase was an effect of the temperature rise.

I completely agree. CO2 acted as a medium term (~500-800 years) feedback to the insolation changes of the ice age swings.

Currently, however, the forcing change (energy imbalance of the climate) is due to our CO2 rise, from which we should expect all the other feedbacks (melting ice caps, glaciers, vegetation changes, whatever happens with clouds) to occur. And in fact the high levels of CO2 we’ve put into the oceans may indeed amplify the CO2 feedback from solubility changes as the temperatures rise.

The insolation changes over the ice ages were on the order of 6-9 W/m^2, resulting in a temperature change of 5-6C. A doubling of CO2 would result in a forcing change of ~3.7 W/m^2.

Just because there are forest fires started by lightning (natural causes) does not exclude the possibility of arson.

Just because there are forest fires started by lightning (natural causes) does not exclude the possibility of arson.

In fact, the pattern and circumstances of the large number of fires in Texas last summer was very suggestive of arson. Possibly some warmist who got tired of waiting for the climate apocalypse and decided to help it along.

We had a similar set of fires (not as many, though) in Colorado two years ago. Privately, fire officials were virtually certain it was arson, but nobody was ever caught.

Lightning fires tend to start when there’s lightning. The wind starts fires when it blows down power lines. When fires start out in the middle of nowhere (but near a road) during a drought and wind storm, but with no lightning or downed lines, one becomes suspicious — particularly when a large number of them start in a short time.

KR, your ocean heat graphs ignore the last 6 years of inconvenient data. Is that the best you can do? David’s ARGO graph is more accurate, more recent, and golly – where did all that extra energy go? Quadrillions of joules…

And yes, let’s talk about a “significant” period of time — the warming started 300 years ago, and the decadal rate was the same in 1870 as it was in 1990 — how does that fit with your theory?

It’s well known (or should be) that we don’t expect the climate to react in a monotonic fashion. Surface water temperatures in particular are going to show some variability, and even flat or steeper periods of a decades length (Meehl et al, 2011), due in large part to circulation changes (overturning, upwelling and downwelling) between surface and deep sea waters.

Palmer et al 2011 discuss this in some length – total ocean heat content as currently measured tracks the top of atmosphere (TOA) imbalance very closely, and in fact can be used as a constraint to evaluate TOA imbalances. So the answer to the “where is it” question is apparently “deep oceans”. I will note that there is a great deal of uncertainty in these measurements, as we are currently only sparsely sampling the deep oceans, but every check done so far has supported increasing OHC in the depths. I look forward to additional and more accurate data in the future.

And yes, let’s talk about a “significant” period of time — the warming started 300 years ago, and the decadal rate was the same in 1870 as it was in 1990 — how does that fit with your theory?

The climate responds to all the forcings – CO2 is certainly not the only factor. Looking at the temperature data the last 40-50 years of rising temperatures do not match natural forcings, but rather a combination of declining natural forcings (which should lead to cooling) plus anthropogenic GHG’s, black soot, and (somewhat balancing that) aerosol effects.

The government climate scientists and the media often tell us about the direct effect of the CO2, but rarely admit that two thirds of their projected temperature increases are due to amplification by feedbacks. They admit there are discrepancies, and go to great lengths to resolve them (see for example, Thorne, Dessler, Sherwood).

All of those articles (and embedded links) refer to the “tropospheric hot spot”, which is a fingerprint of moist adiabatic lapse rate effects of warming from any cause, and which have nothing whatsoever to do with climate sensitivity estimates – an Argument from Irrelevance fallacy.

If you look at the equation of state for water [UNESCO publishes an on-line calculator] pressurised sea water has maximum density at ~2K. Therefore, the heat in the oceans is set by the 2°C thermocline.

The recent Arctic melting caused warmer water from melting ice to settle above that thermocline, hence the rise in N. Atlantic OHC. Less melt water, now the Arctic is freezing, is reducing OHC. The effect of GHGs has been wildly overestimated because of a combination of elementary and subtle mistakes from which the IPCC cannot retreat.

Thus IPCC ‘science’ is alchemy: repeating the modelling in the vain hope that eventually it’ll turn out right. In 2007, Kiehl published this: GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 34, L22710, doi:10.1029/2007GL031383, 2007

In it he admits there is no evidence for CO2-AGW above ‘aerosol noise’. the problem is the aerosol optical physics is very wrong. At the same time as I worked this out, so did the US’ top cloud physicist [G L Stephens] but he apparently can’t get it published. I wonder why? Is is because he points out that the climate models use a cloud optical depth that is twice reality to hide the imaginary part of the warming?

If you look at the equation of state for water [UNESCO publishes an on-line calculator] pressurised sea water has maximum density at ~2K. Therefore, the heat in the oceans is set by the 2°C thermocline.

You completely ignore the thermohaline circulation? Upwelling and downwelling such as the ENSO due in large part to the winds?

This and your previous post are chock full of errors as basic as your direct thermalization claim. Accordingly, I’m not going to bother to comment further on them.

I’m not a climate scientist so I do make errors and am pleased if they are pointed out. However, as I’m highly experienced in other areas, it was easy to see the big mistakes in climate science.

Every process engineer who leans that ‘climate science’ points radiometers upwards to measure what they think is an energy source says the same thing ‘How could they be so dumb!’.

Getting shirty with me won’t stop these elementary errors [the other one is the 33 k claim] from being revealed. I warned politicians a year ago of what was to come as external scientists set about checking the IPCC claims.

Show me where there is unambiguous experimental proof of direct thermalisation, defined as the transfer of vibrational energy from an excited asymmetrical molecule to increased kinetic energy of the symmetrical molecules.

Remember, the container cannot absorb IR photons and the measurements must be done at constant pressure. I don’t think there’s any, but I could be wrong.

Tyndall’s experiment was in a closed brass tune so doesn’t count yet I don’t think anyone in climate science has ever considered this.

I’ve read a lot of your posts here and can’t recall disagreeing in basic context with anything you have said.

As a metallurgist with a lot of background in Mass heat and Momentum transfer situations plus modeling (unlike the AGW kind) and thermodynamics I feel a lot more qualified than any two “climate scientists” put together.

I’m a Metallurgical Engineer: ‘climate science’ is process engineering; my PhD was applied physics. The IR work is vacuous, made worse by the ‘back radiation’ mistake.

In 2004, to keep ‘high feedback’ in AR4, NASA swapped fake science for Twomey’s correct physics he warned could not be used for thicker clouds. The models are a confidence trick to hide bad science.

The political end is apparently Marxist World Government using carbon ‘pollution’ as excuse. They think it’s right to invent data [‘post-normal science’].

The scam was thought up at the 1975 ‘Endangered Atmosphere’ conference. The scientists like Schneider who created the scam switched from predicting a new ice age to global warming. It’s funded by GS, Deutsche, hedge funds etc..

Behind it is eugenics. Carbon offsets are neo-colonialism with children being killed as indigenous peoples are displaced. How the likes of Gillard and Cameron can support such politics is beyond my comprehension; it seems they have no soul.

In the UK, an all-party group of MPs has formed to fight the scam. The trigger has been the revelation that with steam standby, windmills cause more CO2 to be produced than without windmills. They did not do the most basic engineering assessment.

I have in the past attacked the CO2 as potential world danger in two ways.

First and most obvious for anyone with some science is that there IS NO SUCH THING AS BACK RADIATION. Energy follows the temperatutre gradient , in the case of the Earth where I am, Newcastle, ground at 20 deg C and 10 km up at minus 35 deg C.

Once energy leaves Earth it is not going to return and reheat the ground.

Secondly I allowed that if the only heat transfer mechanism was radiation and CO2 was a real player in this there was one problem for warmers: water.

Water totally dominates the theoretical greenhouse effect. In earlier posts I have quantified the theoretical maximum effect of ALL CO2 and then the effect of Human Origin CO2. Both are so small you couldn’t measure them with the most sophisticated gear. Easily demolished the man made CO2 guilt thing with basic analysis.

Now I find after reading papers by Gerlich and T and the Russian Sockhotin? that the only mechanism at work in the lower atmosphere is pressure and gram molecular weight of the local air.

Not only is the CO2 fear mongering quantitatively inaccurate it is also based on incorrect physics that does not apply at normal atmospheric pressures.

Many of the anti warmers in Newcastle, I discovered at Jo’s night with Lord Christopher here were also fellow metallurgists who all were able to smell a rat in the “science” of man made global warming.

As a one time manager of an open heath plant, I have more practical experience with greenhouse gases than most climate scientists get in a lifetime. I have advised them to read up Hoyt C. Hottell’s work at MIT in the 1950s and 60s. He calculated emissivities and absorptivities for GHG mixtures in air.

Because these people are only partly educated in science, they are easy meat for those at the heart of the scam who made the initial mistakes and are using pal review to prevent contrary papers threatening ‘the project’ and the vast earnings from the global warming industry.

When I first heard that CO2 was being called a pollutant and then blamed for potential CAGW I felt sure it was a mistake; that the journalist had misunderstood that the real intention was that CO2 was a proxy for the real pollution from coal combustion.

But no, CO2 is a pollutant.

What really got me going though was the statement by warmers that the Earth was in peaceful oceanic equilibrium and that we CO2 emitters were going to cause the oceans to rise dramatically.

I knew from my geology that locally we had a spike of 4 foot in sea level that lasted a couple of thousand years and dropped about 4 kya to where we are now.

I started work, and to be fair to the average person, there is a lot of convincing sounding bad disinfo out there.

If you do not have an education you are sunk and at the mercy of the AlGorism.

The open hearths were at Corby UK. There I helped develop HSLA steels. I also worked with a heat transfer specialist in the aluminium industry who taught me the nitty gritty about heat transfer including many novel temperature measurement techniques.

The climate scientists haven’t a clue because they believe in precedent of incorrect physics from Tyndall and Arrhenius so will move Heaven and Earth to invent fake add-on science so as not to breach the sanctity of the incorrect core physics.

This is why Hansen has just raised aerosol cooling by a third and invoked greater heat transport in the ocean. Another paper explains the ‘missing heat’ by widening previous error bars.

This is desperate, last-ditch defending. What I have done is to show how you can explain all end of ice age warming and much modern warming by a second aerosol optical physics’ mechanism not involving CO2.

Ultimately, the politicians and honest government scientific advisors [there are some still] have held off from classifying the IPCC consensus as a scam because there was no plausible alternative explanation.

There is now, and it will be published despite the corrupt pal review used to block such work.

Many of my posts have either shown my unwillingness or incapacity to deal with specialised areas of physics relating to CO2 climate change theory.

I notice you don’t suffer there at all and feel envious.

What I have been able to resurrect from the days when I could do a mass, heat, thermodynamic and chemical balance (iron, slag, off gases) on a blast furnace, is the capacity to see complex problems and work through them.

Climate scientists start their “modeling” (which is not engineering modelling) with a big computer when any Metallurgist knows that you start this type of problem with a large sheet of blank paper to sketch out heat sinks and sources, note chemical reactions, establish boundaries where conditions change and so on.

By contrast Climate Modelers do not have an integrated view of climate change.

All we have from the very complex problem of Global Warming is CO2 locked up on its own in a glass case as exhibit 1, the enemy of world climate.

Isolated, guilty and damned, and no I’m not talking about CO2 I’m pointing to the Climate Modelers.

“Looking at the temperature data the last 40-50 years of rising temperatures do not match natural forcings,” — which is the argument from ignorance fallacy. Just because we can’t explain what else might have caused the warming, is not much of a reason to presume it’s “CO2″.

As for “Argument from Irrelevance” – not even close. CO2 doesn’t need to be the only cause — it’s the one that the models predicted, ergo the models are wrong. See the graphs. Worse, if some other cause (like, all of them) was supposed to produce a hot spot (yes they would in theory), the news is no better, it’s still not there. The whole theory is busted. Either that amplification isn’t happening, OR it would be, but the world isn’t warming. There is no angle on this that helps your cause.

If the tropospheric hot spot (which you have emphasized quite a bit) is not occurring, then there is an issue with our understanding of the moist adiabatic lapse rate – as a tropospheric hot spot is a fingerprint of that due to any warming. I’ll also note that current radiosondes support a warmer upper troposphere, and that all indications point to earlier radiosondes having calibration issues.

That issue doesn’t change the fact that temperatures are rising. Or that the stratosphere is cooling, ice caps melting, glaciers retreating, winters warming faster than summer, growth zones moving towards the poles, nights warming faster than days, or any of the other fingerprints of an increased greenhouse effect as predicted over 100 years ago from basic physics by Arrhenius and others.

The greenhouse effect is derived from basic physics, spectroscopy and conservation of energy. It’s supported by a huge amount of measurements and observations – with it’s predictions confirmed over and over. I wish it were not the case – but unless someone has a better theory, I’m going to go with the one that is supported by and consistent with the evidence.

As for “Argument from Irrelevance” – not even close…

Really? I don’t see any other appropriate term for making a claim on climate sensitivity, and in support of it listing completely irrelevant papers.

KR – You say the stratosphere is cooling. Do you know how they measure the stratosphere as compared to the troposphere? If they are measured by the same means (eg radiosondes, satellites), why are the stratosphere measurements accepted as gospel but the troposphere ones are treated as suspect? It wouldn’t have anything to do with the unexpected results produced would it? If they are measured by the same means and the warming of the troposphere has been incorrectly measured and it’s result are too cold, does this mean also that the stratosphere has also been measured incorrectly & it’s results are too cold also. Either way, if the troposphere is warming the stratosphere isn’t cooling, or if the stratosphere is cooling the troposphere isn’t warming. Unless the 2 are measured in a different manner that is.

Anyone know if the stratosphere & troposphere are measured the same way?

(The Lower Stratosphere is not cooling.Has not since the early 1990′s) CTS

All of those articles (and embedded links) refer to the “tropospheric hot spot”, which is a fingerprint of moist adiabatic lapse rate effects of warming from any cause, and which have nothing whatsoever to do with climate sensitivity estimates

If the tropospheric hot spot (which you have emphasized quite a bit) is not occurring, then there is an issue with our understanding of the moist adiabatic lapse rate – as a tropospheric hot spot is a fingerprint of that due to any warming. I’ll also note that current radiosondes support a warmer upper troposphere, and that all indications point to earlier radiosondes having calibration issues.

Can you please explain to me what the calibration issues were, was it operator error or was it a problem with the actual claibration?

The rate of ascent is proportional to the amount of helium in the balloon, the more helium the faster it ascends, conversely the bursting height (altitude) reached is inversely proportional to the amount of helium used, the more helium used the lower the bursting height.

The sonde can measure PTu – pressure, temp and humidity, all sondes are calibrated in the factory under controlled conditions and from this a calibration al Gore rythm is produced and supplied with the sonde.

Before release the algorythm is applied to the sonde….well actually not to the sonde but to the data that is received from the sonde. The humidity sensor is heated so it does not freeze during flight.

Suffice to say if there are calibration problems then those problems would arise via operator error. However if this is so then i would assume it would relate to a very small percentage as Vaisala (the worlds leading radio sonde manufacturer) provide excellent hands on training. Also remember that a majority of balloon releases are automated so the operator error factor is largely removed.

Here are some selected quotes from your links

The apparent cooling trend in observed global mean temperature series from radiosonde records relative
to Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) radiances has been a long-standing problem in upper-air climatology.
It is very likely caused by a warm bias of radiosonde temperatures in the 1980s, which has been reduced over
time with better instrumentation and correction software.

I chose this one because it states that it is “very likely” there is a bias so we are trying to remove it.

and

The homogenization system consistently reduces the bias in the daytime tropical, global, and Northern
Hemisphere (NH) extratropical trends but underestimates the full magnitude of the bias.

But KR what is the magnitude and strength of the bias and what is it caused by.

Is there a problem with the factory calibration?

Is there a problem with operator error?

A bias if any must come from here so we need to find it a correct for it, we cannot simply assume there is a bias and then guess what it is?

I asked for evidence showing there is a bias……….i expected a document from the manufacturer explaining it and all i got was some dodgy paper written by someone trying to legally adjust another temp record.

Of all the warmbots you are the only one that attempts to create a logical debate dont stop now please.

Please supply evidence that shows a bias in the measurement of temp/pressure/humidity.

Crakar24 – As I said, this is not my specialty, and I would prefer not to overstate anyone’s case for/against. I’ve pointed you to the literature – the suspicion of bias came from among other things differences between radiosonde data (spatially/temporally rare samples, high resolution vertically), satellite data over the last 30 years (great time/area coverage, low vertical resolution), and the underlying physics (radiosonde data not matching physics expectations).

I will not unequivocally state that historic radiosonde data shows a tropospheric warm spot – but current radiosondes do, satellites do, and there are reasons to suspect earlier radiosonde data of having severe biases. There’s certainly no strong support for claiming that some degree of upper tropospheric warming hasn’t happened.

Jo you got it all wrong
Warming maximum in the tropical upper troposphere deduced from thermal winds
Robert J. Allen & Steven C. Sherwood
Abstract
Climate models and theoretical expectations have predicted that the upper troposphere should be warming faster than the surface. Surprisingly, direct temperature observations from radiosonde and satellite data have often not shown this expected trend. However, non-climatic biases have been found in such measurements. Here we apply the thermal-wind equation to wind measurements from radiosonde data, which seem to be more stable than the temperature data. We derive estimates of temperature trends for the upper troposphere to the lower stratosphere since 1970. Over the period of observations, we find a maximum warming trend of 0.65 0.47 K per decade near the 200 hPa pressure level, below the tropical tropopause. Warming patterns are consistent with model predictions except for small discrepancies close to the tropopause. Our findings are inconsistent with the trends derived from radiosonde temperature datasets and from NCEP reanalyses of temperature and wind fields. The agreement with models increases confidence in current model-based predictions of future climate change.
The graph your looking at (lying eyes) is most likely an aberrant bias. Science moves on – but anti-warmists can get hung up on the lack of explanations.

Our results highlight the possibility of abrupt climate change arising out of nonlinear atmospheric dynamics (e.g. Corti et al. 1999), as opposed to the nonlinear climate physics emphasized by EMICs, and we verify that these results are not an artifact of numerical truncation.

While satellite MSU/AMSU observations generally support GCM results with tropical deep-layer tropospheric warming faster than surface, it is evident that the AR4 GCMs exaggerate the increase in static stability between tropical middle and upper troposphere during the last three decades.
What this paper is about in the IPPC assessment based the modeling on earlier CGMs at that time. What is now discovered in the above paper is the models were exaggerating the static stability of this trend. Therefore basing the collating and collecting of data l;eads to errorous conclusions like those positied in Dr Evans writngs. What he down is a common mistake believe what the models indicate and capture a STATIC increased temperature state when the above finds why!

REPLY: So Ross, either 28 million weather balloons don’t agree with your theory (yellow not being red and all), OR the weather balloons are biased and a much better way to measure the temperature of the air 10km above the equator is to look at wind shear, and calculate the temperature from that. O-K. The obvious way to measure the temperature 10km above Bermuda is to use a computer in San Diego to calculate what it is. Right? Thermometer-pffft. If we can’t get simple technology like a weather balloon to work, what are the odds we can produce a model of the planetary atmosphere and the 400 covarying interdependent variables thereof? Not to mention that I heard wind shear to temperature calcs don’t work to well at the equator, shame that’s where the tropical hot spot is supposed to be. Fu et al supports the skeptics. As does McKintyre. “The models are wrong, but only by 400%.”

You have nothing.

“Most likely an aberrant bias” is not the obvious conclusion that 99% of normal scientists would leap to at this point. Best of luck with your pet theory. Jo

[13] The weather balloon data showing the atmospheric warming pattern was finally released in 2006, in the US Climate Change Science Program, 2006, part E of Figure 5.7, on page 116 (www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/sap1-1-final-chap5.pdf).

There is no other data for this period, and we cannot collect more data on atmospheric warming during global warming until global warming resumes. This is the only data there is. Btw, isn’t this an obscure place to release such important and pivotal data – you don’t suppose they are trying to hide something, do you?

[14] See previous endnote.

(Does he know that BEN SANTER is the lead author of the paper.Where the image in question is found in?) CTS

CTS – My apologies, the links in the text did not go directly to references, but rather to the article as a whole. This gave me the impression of a self-referential link. I did find the “References” section based upon your comment.

From that, and the Santer et al link:

• On monthly and annual timescales, amplification is also a ubiquitous feature of observations, and is very similar
to values obtained from models and basic theory.
• For longer-timescale temperature changes over 1979 to 1999, only one of four observed upper-air data sets has larger tropical warming aloft than in the surface records. All model runs with surface warming over this period show amplified warming aloft.
• These results could arise due to errors common to all models; to significant non-climatic influences remaining within some or all of the observational data sets, leading to biased long-term trend estimates; or a combination of these factors. The new evidence in this Report (model-to-model consistency of amplification results, the large uncertainties in observed tropospheric temperature trends, and independent physical evidence supporting substantial tropospheric warming) favors the second explanation.
• A full resolution of this issue will require reducing the large observational uncertainties that currently exist. These uncertainties make it difficult to determine whether models still have common, fundamental errors in their representation of the vertical structure of atmospheric temperature change.

As I said earlier – current observations supports a tropospheric warm spot, there are potential issues with past observations (as per the several links I provided – this chapter is from 2006, the articles I noted are 2008 and later), and more data would be worth having. Not a slam dunk conclusion for either the existance or absence of a tropospheric hot spot, as I have noted on this blog in previous threads.

(Both satellite data sets show no long term warming of the lower troposphere.LINK) CTS

3) They then admit the uncertainties make it difficult to determine if the models have a common fundamental error

Therefore current observations do not support the hot spot.

Secondly, if they make a claim that the data is in eror they need to justify what that error is, they have not done this. There is nothing in any of your links which describes what is causing the error and how much it influences the data.

KR… The temperatures are not rising as you state. In fact they are falling. Your Guru, Phil Jones, admitted in an interview “There has been no global warming since 1995.” Your belief system seems to be based on IPCC temperature readings from 29% of the earths surface… about 30% of which actually showed cooling. Another third of the sites are compromised. Reading your postings, as well as those that refute your entrenched position, show me that you (like all AGW religious zealots) will never admit you could be wrong… even when the preponderance of evidence is against you. I also noticed that skeptics like mydogsgotnose do admit the chance they could be in error. What a telling difference!

I’ve also read the Scafetta paper. The entire core of that paper depends upon insulting the ACRIM TSI readings, claiming that the solar data over the last 30 years, when we’ve had the best instrumentation (but for some reason not before then), is invalid.

Despite simple indexes of sunspot count being reliable measures of insolation for hundreds of years. Despite the ongoing work at ACRIM in joining together different satellites with different calibrations, different kinds of instruments, over the last 30 years – records that may have differing baselines but completely agree on variations from their baselines.

While earlier XBT and other data is more limited and with more uncertainties than anyone would like, it goes back quite a number of years – the ARGO network is an excellent addition, although even the leads on the ARGO project state that it’s still shaking out, still refining their data and how to interpret it. Not to mention that it only goes to 700 meters – the oceans average 3900 meters deep. Even disregarding the graphic distortions above, looking at just the last 6 years of data is cherrypicking.

Regarding Hansen (still in amazement that skeptics focus on a single 25 year old study, ignoring the current state of the art), it’s noteworthy that CO2 emissions match Scenario C from that paper, with a much lower than expected increase in CH4 and other greenhouse gases – Scenario A simply did not happen. Hansen’s model runs about 25% high given the forcings, which is entirely consistent with the then state of the science 4.2C sensitivity he used, rather than the current estimates of 3-3.5C.

even the leads on the ARGO project state that it’s still shaking out, still refining their data and how to interpret it.

And there you have it, KR is admitting for all to see precisely the main flaw in alarmist’s mindset that leads to a “tortured data effect”, thereby leading to suspect, predetermined conclusions. Do you seriously not see what you are saying there? You are admitting, KR, that the data is only appropriate for interpretation after it has been manipulated! Amazing.

Winston, remember the early satellite temperatures, and how the “skeptics” loved them because they showed cooling? Remember how after some time there was a realisation that the data hadn’t been properly corrected for orbital variations? After it was, it showed similar warming to all the terrestrial temperature records.

It is not surprising that there may be teething problems with ARGO data. Then again, maybe the oceans are cooling. What would I know.

remember the early satellite temperatures…….Remember how after some time there was a realisation that the data hadn’t been properly corrected for orbital variations?

I can understand you getting all nostalgic, John. I personally don’t recall ever suggesting satellites showed cooling, but I imagine there was a time when such data was fresh and of such a limited time frame that one could gloss over the fact that the global non-polar temperatures fluctuated in sinusoidal fashion about a possible very minor rise in the mean inconsistent with predictions of catastrophic warming whatsoever.

I’m sure you look back on a happier time when scrutiny was limited to a few heretics and the word of alarmists were taken without question. But, your days in the sun are gone. Your CAGW meme is effectively dead and AGW is on life support and fading fast. That can only happen after 30 years of mass indoctrination if the observable facts don’t match the “scenario” predicted for them.

Ironically, I believe the Climate change scam has done more to set back the cause of sensible planetary environmental and political management than any other single factor. So, when you look back in nostalgia over the loss of your cause, don’t forget to cast the blame where it belongs- at the feet of Hansen, Mann, Jones, Wigley, et al. The bond of trust between the scientific community and the general population having been inexorably broken because of exactly this “adjusting data” behind closed doors, avoiding FOI laws and scientific tradition, moral obligation and basic decorum. So, when adjustments are made, they must be fully justified, raw data must be presented unexpurgated alongside, and the whole process open so that appropriate critical evaluation of such adjustments can occur from those not necessarily a part of the “club” or the “team” or whatever other communitarian euphemism you can dream up to describe the clique of group thinkers.

Quite so Bruce….the AGW knobheads said we were going to burn up and we would never see snow again.
Skiing in the Cairngorms is now a regular event every winter…
CO2 has been 15 times higher…
They have bombarded the atmosphere with satellite monitoring and weather ballooons…jo Nova reackons as many as 28 million.
Still no warming…and still they argue…
And we are the deniers?

We know the average global temperature (if there is such a thing) in 1980 and again in 2010.

We know the level of CO2 in both 1980 and 2010 and we can calculate what warming the extra CO2 should have caused for the extra 50ppm or so.

Because we know both the temperature difference and the amount of warming CO2 should have added if climate sensitivity was within the range guessed by the IPCC, we can see exactly how accurate the IPCC’s guesses and compare with climate sensitivity based on observation.

My problem is, if I try and do that calc, I end up with a figure that matches closer the IPCC’s version.

What you have missed is that the IPCC uses 1979 as a baseline because that is when ENSO switched from cooling to warming so most recent heating has not involved CO2-AGW. ENSO switched back in 2007, hence we are now cooling. Even the IPCC recognises that the case for high feedback CO2-AGW can’t be made until we have seen the complete ENSO cycle of ~60 years.

My view is that the IPCC science is almost completely wrong because of mistakes by Tyndall, Arrhenius, Sagan, van der Hulst and Hansen. Correct them and you show how ice ages end with no GHG warming, also why the North Atlantic, which provided much if not most post 1990 Global OHC change, is now cooling.

You need a fairly esoteric knowledge of physics to identify two of the mistakes – Tyndall’s and van der Hulst via Sagan. The IPCC’s response seems to have been to issue fake data in a recent paper. This fight will go on for a while because the US State Department is covertly funding half the IPCC’s costs to keep this Mafia carbon scam going.

Mydogsgotnonose makes a good point. The Climate wonks read the related literature, so will be very much aware of the research being done on natural climatic cycles, solar cycles, magnetic cycles, etc.

Rather than admit to the difficulty in merging their view of the world with those cycles, they choose to frame the debate around time periods that coincide with what they know is likely to be a warming trend caused by these other cycles.

This is why they hate baselining against a point that is not of their choosing. It is significant that the first objection raised by KR was on this very topic.

* Given variation in the climate, we can expect decade long flat and decade long extremely steep trends – choosing a particular point can be used to deceive, as in trending from 1998 (right after a steep El Nino rise) to the present (around a La Nina).

* Various measurements will have different offsets – changes, trends are indicative of something happening, not apparent offsets. This is an ongoing issue with misrepresentations of measures such as the ACRIM TSI data, as per the Scafetta paper someone else pointed to.

Single point baselines are, IMO and based upon experience, a sign that someone may be lying with the graphics, as seen here, especially Fig. 7.

Rereke – Another example of single-point baseline misrepresentation, from a recent WUWT discussion:

Look at the NOAA US data, and compare the (endpoint to endpoint) trends between 1930-1998 and 1934-2008 single year temperatures. One is an extremely steep temperature rise – the other a fairly large decline. Then look at the differences in decadal averages – an incline of 0.1F/decade, somewhere between the cherry-pick extrema.

Again KR, you miss the point of the graphs, which is the variations from Hansens 1988 predictions, and the IPCC 1990 predictions. Nobody is talking about trends. We are talking about verification.

Predictions were made on those dates by people who supposedly are experts in the field, or who have access to experts in the field.

Politicians relied on those predictions. Were they right to do so? The graphs showing the reality of the temperature in the years following indicate not.

I am not cherry-picking the dates. The starting date is inherently part of the prediction.

“It is 1988, and the global temperature is x, and from my research, I predict it will be y twenty five years from now”. Twenty five years on, we find that it was not.

So all that Dr Evans is pointing out is that the evidence demonstrably does not support the hypothesis. Ergo, the hypothesis is wrong, and must be modified to reflect the reality that has been observed.

That is the normal scientific method, is it not?

Of course, this is just the start. When you look at the number of predictions that have been made by various scientists and organisations, there is a lot of verification to be done to see just how accurate the computer models were at the time the prediction was made. I suspect that very few of the predictions will stand up to that sort of audit.

It will be interesting to see what happens when the results are published.

There’s a very clear illustration of the perils of single-point baselining shown here, as summarized in this graph of ocean heat content anomaly.

Dr. Evans started his ocean heat content anomaly graph from a single point in 2003 – during a strong La Nina (an extrema), when cooler sea surface temperatures allow greater heat flow into the oceans. He chose a point even more extreme than the example described above! The resulting ‘prediction’ he drew from that extrema point and the actual trend is exceptionally deceptive.

To be blunt, I would in my opinion have to consider that graph of Dr. Evans evidence of either poor statistics or ill intent.

There are many other factors other than CO2 which effect temperatures and you have just ignored them. The ocean currents [El Ninos / La Nina ] have been positive from 1978 to 1998 thus causing apparent warming not due to CO2. This must be subtracted.

The amount of water vapor has gone down since 1950 so how is this positive feedback thingy supposed to work ?

I don’t post here often, so just for info, I don’t accept the AGW hypothesis. I’ve read many of David and Jo’s articles, and have sometimes disagreed with things Jo has written (more politics than science), but I’m still sceptical about the whole CO2 is evil meme

Just had time for a quick scan of the piece, but it sure looks good and powerful for helping to get past the ‘denier! denier!’ wail (or is it wall?) that can so easily rear up when modest criticism is made of the climate extremists’ point of view. Looking forward to getting back for a slower read of it when I get the chance.

What the climate science propagandists do is first claim ‘back radiation’ exists. then if you persist in using a scientific argument they revert to an increased impedance to IR transmission to space. That is perfectly correct except for the inconvenient truth that if you reformulate the problem in standard physics’ terms, you don’t get the high positive feedback which is the basis of the CAGW scare.

In essence, the function of the models is to blind people with science and it takes a lot of time even for a person like me with very high level physics to catch them fiddling. However, there are 1000s who, very annoyed by the corruption of science shown by Climategate, have spent the time doing the spadework.

My view is that those who set up the science in the first place made mistakes but the fast warming in the early 1990s gave them a false sense of security. In 1997 when CO2 was shown to follow T at the end of ice ages, they had to calibrate CO2 climate sensitivity against modern warming, hence the false hockey-sticks AND they also had to devise another amplification of end of ice age tsi increase.

In 2005 , Hansen claimed the latter is the albedo difference between dry and wet ice. The real answer is something totally different, and it explains recent Arctic melting. The response by the activists to criticism , as shown here, is to throw their toys out of the pram and to threaten to put ‘deniers’ on trial for eco-crime. in Germany, they are almost at critical mass, a new Nazi tyranny. In the UK and Australia, they are trying to identify critics and get them sacked from their jobs. I’m retired!

DLR is Prevost Exchange Energy which can do no thermodynamic work. At equilibrium the radiometer shields the exactly equal IR flux from the opposite direction which cancels it out, also the extra energy which causes real heat transfer, hot to cold.

Arrhenius was mistaken in thinking the S-B equation for a single emitter defines net energy emitted. The definitive experiment is a Dutch PhD thesis. The student shinned up an 800 foot high radio mast at night and measured Up-Down IR vs height. It fell exponentially to zero – Beer-Lambert for the absorption of IR emitted from the Earth’s surface

So, DLR is a measure of temperature convolved with emissivity [I once built a pyrometer based on sampling its spectrum at two wavelengths]. What it does is to link at the speed of light the IR density of states of the emitter/absorber pair.

You prove this by a thought experiment. Suddenly reduce air temperature and it emits less total energy. Less of it is absorbed by the Earth’s surface so it has holes in the its IR density of states. These are then filled by energy from molecular motion. That increases the conversion rate of kinetic to IR energy hence more IR is emitted to heat up the air.

So, DLR is a control system signal: it is not converted to heat when absorbed. You show how false is the climate science explanation by a thought experiment. Imagine you’re on a beach, air temperature 25°C, sand temperature 30°C and it’s windy. You put up a wind break and to keep convection plus radiation constant, the sand temperature rises to 45°C.

What you do by putting up the windbreak is to add a mini UHI and it has a major effect on DLR so why doesn’t climate science claim UHI causes most global warming, which is what should be the case if DLR can do thermodynamic work!

Excellent article, Dr. Evans. Please write another exploring the failure of mainstream climate science to aggressively pursue empirical research on the “feedbacks.” It seems that mainstream climate science is not interested in such research. I do not count computer models as empirical research.

I have lost the reference to analysis that showed little or or no increase in atmospheric humidity (water content), a modeled requirement for amplification. If so, that discussion would be one more data reference for Dr. Evans.

Dr Evans has presented what is in my opinion a clear and well documented synopsis of the Skeptic position. Please point me to where there is a similar and perhaps equally persuasive presentation of the Warmist position.

I would disagree – Dr. Evans has, as I noted above, distorted the graphs, made strawman arguments, and has not presented any support for a low climate sensitivity, which is apparently the purpose of his article.

“. . . and has not presented any support for a low climate sensitivity”

Your statement calls for the “proving” of a negative eg – “Prove to me that you did not do it”.

What is really required is for someone from your side to actually show there is ANY positive “climate sensitivity – that is, a sustainable positive feedback mechanism at work.

To the best of my knowledge, in all of nature there has never been established an example of a sustainable positive feedback mechanism (one that can feed on itself and grow without the addition of an external driver, or energy source). And yet your entire CAGW “theory” depends completely on the existence of just such a mechanism.

The human body is capable of some 8,000 processes, and all of them, except two, are negative feedback loops. The two exceptions are heart attacks and orgasms.

If water vapour in the troposphere does not excede more than about 4% in the tropics and the troposphere holds about 97% of atmospheric water vapour and CO2 combines with water vapour to form carbonic acid, then the forcing causing an increase of ‘greenhouse’ gases,CO2 and water vapour can only mean more rain so as to keep the system in equilibrium?

<blockquoteThe direct effect of CO2 is well-established physics, based on laboratory results, and known for over a century.[2]

Dr Evans cites a reference ’2 ‘ here that goes nowhere. I’m disappointed not to find reference to any primary source for the greenhouse effect theory that the sentence implies and one might expect the citation to give. Such a statement beggars proper citation.

May I ask what laboratory results are referred to and where can one find the primary source documents.

It seems Svente Arrhenius misapprehended what Fourier, Tyndall and others had written to come up with the greenhouse effect theory.

Tyndall was more interested in water vapour anyway. (See his lecture “On radiation through the Earth’s atmosphere” 23-1-1863). It seems to me that all AGW science and most sceptics (those who believe a greenhouse effect is real but not significant) are simply accepting and plagiarising the muddled view of Arrhenius – blindly regurgitating it, like here, in the opening or closing remarks of their discourses on the topic of AGW. Simple non-mathematical versions of Arrhenius’ ideas can be found in the English translation of his book “Worlds in the Making” 1908.

We might remember that from 1896 to the rise of the alarmist upstarts like Bolin, Jones and the other Villach conspirators in the late 1960′s and 1970′s, Arrhenius’ greenhouse effect theory was dismissed by mainstream science because it was unphysical and defied laws of thermodynamics.

I would be very interested if the ‘Boxer’ (mydogsgotnonose) could clarify and expand on the terms he used in reply above so I can better understand all he/she is saying – it’s most interesting.

For mine the fight involves both science and politics. If one can convince those of the political class that the greenhouse effect theory is bunk then it’s game over for the giant scam. A Royal Commission with the very narrow terms of reference to only investigate the greenhouse effect theory might be a clincher. Efforts for a R-C with wide terms of reference regarding AGW are so far rejected. Imagine all the billions the Labor government of Australia now expends on ‘Climate Change’, and all the billions that the Coalition (Hunt/Turnbull plan) would spend on “Direct Action’ – if a tiny amount of that cost were spent on a Royal Commission to test the veracity of the greenhouse effect theory the utility for Australians and the world might be enormous. Valuable money could then be committed to useful projects like protecting people from dangers associated with drought, storms, floods and bushfires.

As part of an intelligence gathering effort I would very much appreciate communications of primary source historical scientific documents (like that quoted above from Tyndall) . Empirical evidence for the greenhouse effect theory or against it is what is needed. Correspondence can be sent to galileomover8@gmail.com

In despair for empirical evidence about the greenhouse effect theory an experiment was designed in a form reproducible by students at home or in school. It shows CO2 does not increase temperature by back-scattered transfer of infra-red radiation above the temperature from insolation of the sun alone. (It has been posted here under an Unthreaded thread). (The eight leading Australian professors of Climate Change alarmism could not bring themselves to comment / review it – except David Karoly who said there was nothing to surprise him here.)

“The direct effect of CO2 is well-established physics, based on laboratory results, and known for over a century.”

I also share some concern about this blanket statement. In the context of the present post Dr. Evans is certainly free to assume the “direct effect of CO2″ as a practical matter, because his larger point is that even assuming this direct effect, the feedbacks are where the action is at. This is a reasonable approach to the debate and, indeed, feedbacks are a very appropriate, perhaps even best place, to stake out an argument.

However, some of us still want to know whether this alleged direct effect of CO2 is even as clear cut as it is often argued to be.

Specifically, we know that laboratory experiments do not fully or completely replicate the earth-atmosphere system. Thus, right from the get-go we have to soften the statement to something more along the lines of “All things being equal, a doubling of CO2 will result in x.” Well, what does “all things being equal” mean, and what can it possibly mean in the context of applying a lab experiment to the real world situation?

Did these experiments, the results of which have been known “for over a century,” resemble anything that could be applied to the live atmosphere in a way in which we can even evaluate what things we are retaining as “equal” and what things are different? Are the experiments performed with closed containers or containers open to space? If closed, is there increasing pressure from introduction of CO2? Is the container large enough to permit air flow and circulation and the natural movements and interactions that molecules would experience on a large scale? And on and on. In fact, there are so many differences that we are hard pressed to find a single aspect of a lab experiment that is consonant to the real world. As a result, all we can really say is that: in a particular experiment, we noted result x, which may or may not have any similarity with the real world.

Now, some would argue, as does Dr. Evans, that what matters is feedbacks. We could even acknowledge, as does Dr. Evans, that there are too many feedbacks to take into account “There are literally thousands of feedbacks, each of which either reinforces or opposes the direct warming effect of the extra CO2.”

We can further call these processes direct effects, feedbacks, forcings, or whatever we want to call them. But the fact of the matter is that these are all live parameters — physical realities — that affect the system and any result we get from the system. We could say, for example, that “CO2 causes x, but that x is then moderated by a, b, c . . . z, such that the ultimate outcome is not x.” However, alternatively we would be just as justified in saying that “*in the given atmospheric system that we have* CO2 doesn’t in fact cause x.” In other words, given the system we are working with, the “direct effect” so-labeled, doesn’t attein. It is a question of semantics only.

And thus we come to the crux of the matter. There are no lab experiments that faithfully replicate the system in question. We simply cannot ever say “all things being equal” doubling CO2 will do x, because we *know* that all things are not equal. Whether we call the physical realities “effects” or “feedbacks” or “forcings” or anything else does not change the facts that: (i) we have no theory that adequately explains or predicts what change in temperature will result from a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere, (ii) therefore, we have no idea what change in temperature will actually result in the real world, and (iii) the best we can do is look at observations, which to the limited extent we have them before us, demonstrate that CO2 is either a bit player or irrelevant.

None of this is meant to detract from Dr. Evans’ otherwise very helpful post. I agree with him that there is much merit to keeping our eye on the feedbacks, particularly from a standpoint of countering the alleged positive feedbacks assumed by the IPCC et al. What I do propose is that we ought not assume that any limited experiment with CO2 in the lab provides us any great insight into an alleged “direct effect” of CO2 in the real world.

David; Your article explains the issue perfectly. I could not imagine a better or more concise presentation. The feedbacks are indeed the entire crux of the issue and the data all points one way. Any warmist who does not at least very seriously question his position after reading this is driven by beliefs and politics not science and fact. Unfortunately, such people cannot be reached by logical debate.

When I illustrated my post called “Perpetuum Mobile“, I chose a photo of a Civil War era perpetual motion machine, because that’s what they are in my mind—a relic of a time long ago when people hadn’t grasped that such a machine is an impossibility.

However, I’m starting to see that perpetual motion still maintains its historical death grip on the scientific illiterati. And I can kinda see why, everyone wants something for nothing.

And truly, people, I hate to bust your bubble and maybe I can’t do so in any case, but the heat can’t flow in the silver wire forever. That would be perpetual motion, and the laws of thermodynamics don’t allow that.

Look, I know that we all break various laws all the time, someone once estimated that Americans break one to three laws every day.

But the laws of thermodynamics aren’t like that. They are not just good ideas, or regulations put in place to protect us from each other or from ourselves.

As far as anyone has ever been able to determine (and lots have tried) those laws simply can’t be broken. That’s why they are called the Laws of Thermodynamics, and not the Good Ideas of Thermodynamics. Those laws say we can’t have a perpetual motion machine driven by gravity.

So if you want to continue to believe that heat will flow through the silver wire forever and ever without end, and that the mystery power that will make it do that is gravity, or lapse rates, or unicorns, or density-driven molecular interactions, or “gravito-thermal forces” or anything else, be my guest. As I pointed out with my Civil War machine, that mistake has a long and storied history, you’re not the first to believe in energetic fairies and Maxwell’s demons.

Just don’t expect your belief, that gravity can do continuous unending work forever and ever amen, to be widely shared in the scientific community …

w.
——————————————————————————————————————————–
Willis now knows that a new paradigm has arrived, and for sciences sake, I do hope the new United Theory Of Climate, remains questioned to the ninth degree.

I’m getting a little tired of Willis. The atmospheric lapse rate is maintained by convection which is driven by solar energy input and convection only exists because of a gravity field(no convection in the ISS – hence lots of fans to circulate air). That’s the sense in which gravity “causes” warming of the surface.
Frankly I’m seeing lots of stupid articles on WUWT lately and even more stupid comments.

Yeah well Willis got it severely wrong with his conducting/absorbing/emitting shell model and AFAIK never admitted it. He still thinks back radiation does something. Putting a second shell around the first increases the temperature of the original emitter??? We could do this with a real experiment in a well equipped physics lab.

I don’t have any problem with an radiation absorbing gas getting warmer when radiation of the right wavelength passes through it. This will occur in the atmosphere with LW radiation from the ground(also occurs in the stratosphere with solar UV absorption – this is what *causes* the stratosphere). Convection then brings the extra energy to the surface in the LW case and warms it slightly. Back radiation not required.
Which also raises the cooling stratosphere issue. Why this should be a function of CO2 and not solar UV is beyond me. Sol is a variable star in the UV.

As for the Jelbring paper – Jesus wept. I give up. Exactly what those assumptions have to do with a real planetary atmosphere is beyond me. He may be right but is utterly pointless.
A convective overturning atmosphere will tend towards adiabatic. In the real world if there’s no convection, depending where the energy source is and the absorbing properties of the atmosphere the lapse rate can be almost anything other than adiabatic.

“Personally, I think the DALR is caused by the greenhouse effect and gravity, working together to maintain the heat differentials that drive the troposphere. Heresy, I’m sure, on this blog, but there it is.

I would say the bulk of the pro AGW people, be they science or political based know they are scamming. Look at their “cure” tax the northern hemisphere to a standstill and and ship the jobs and prosperity to the largely unregulated India and China, just what do they expect to achieve with this except far far worse pollution from their unregulated industry? If they proposed plans that could actually work then maybe they would have a shred of credibility but sadly not a shred!

I don’t think they are. They genuinely believe that the existing evidence points to dangerous warming caused by the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and that we are responsible for that increase.

The main reason jobs are being shipped to China and India has nothing to do with AGW or a carbon tax.

Ultimately, until climate related disasters are so obvious that blind freddy can’t ignore them, it will be impossible to get coordinated world wide action.

But I also agree with you – most people who subscribe to AGW do believe it is correct. (decieved – not decievers).

There would be a minority who do not believe who seek to exploit belief in AGW for their own ends.

Pesonally the key mistake AGW believers make is to not question the processes by which the AGW artefacts are made and published. They assume that the processes are both honest and valid – and as it turns out – they are neither.

Would you trust a law court where the accused was not allowed to defend himself? Process violations can be very subtle, and even practitioners in the field can come to believe that their broken processes are still honest and valid.

My position is to have my doubts, but act now. If the climate disasters don’t happen, or our understanding improves to the extent that we can see that there is no risk, then we can return to business as usual.

As far as my doubts are concerned, I expect that if this decade warms substantially, then my doubts will be gone. If there is no warming, or cooling, then I will still have doubts.

We are protected from the heat of our Sun which is on the inside our blanket.

If the sun is on the inside of the blanket then that infers the blanket is wrapped around the sun. Also if it is “our” blanket this also infers the blanket wraps around the sun and the Earth with standing on the outside looking in.

It has occurred to me that somebody up there knows more than they are letting on and that’s the reason for the AGW story. However then they’d be building nukes as fast as we could and they aren’t. Also if you look at what they do not say(a much more reliable guide to what politicians really believe)you’d realise they don’t believe in AGW. Anyway Peak Oil is BS. You can’t produce more oil than there is demand or the storages all fill up. I’ve read that they are indeed at high levels. Also there seems to be a story each week about the discovery of more hydrocarbon fuels and at current prices coal to oil is a goer. Done on large scale with nuke process heat it would be interesting to see what barrel costs. You get refined product out of F-T process not crude.

Thus far, the science of atmosphere has rested on the paradigm of Greenhouse.

It is a misinterpretation of the observations of the french scientist Baron Fourier by Arrhenius in 1896. It is that misconception, of previous known physical laws , that has polluted our perceptions of the earths atmosphere into the modern ages.

To shift that invalid principal one has to offer a different perception born of observations and proved in the universal application of it in, within a symbolic syntax (maths).

This is the crux of the matter
The current paradigm demands our atmosphere is gas in an enclosed house.
The correct principal is that the enclosure itself is the whole of the atmosphere. Consider the greenhouse roof to start at the earths surface and end at the top of our atmosphere.

The invalid greenhouse principal is false when subjected to the principal of conservation of energy. They cannot explain why it is so except for the introduction of a new invalid principal.

As we have always done, when our knowledge of the universe of physics reaches the end of our ability to predicate, we fear the unknown. We naturally conserve our existence and fear is a mechanism of this conservation.

It must be so, that earth, water, air, are different forms of the manifestation of energy in mass. The perception of a greenhouse allows a supposition that the energy equation of the equilibrium of mass can be different in its different forms of manifestation.

Arrhenius, a scientists bias. Greenhouse’s were a tools used in cold Europe.

Prevalent at the time of Arrhenius, they were used for the enhancement of the process of biological life. Wrong.

Why wouldn’t a man, think an analogy, could correlate to the creation of life on Earth. As the vessel of life the atmosphere. Wrong.

The certainty of man to err.
Hans Jullrig says:
January 22, 2012 at 8:43 am

markus says:
January 21, 2012 at 11:29 pm

Thank you very much for the interesting perspective you are describing. Here is some additional information.

Svante Ahrrenius got a nobel prize in chemistry, not because of his calculations of a hypothetical unproven greenhouse effect. He was challenged and disproven about this ideas during the first decade after year 1900.

From Wikipedia:Greenhouse effect
“Arrhenius developed a theory to explain the ice ages, and in 1896 he was the first scientist to speculate that changes in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could substantially alter the surface temperature through the greenhouse effect.[4] He was influenced by the work of others, including Joseph Fourier. Arrhenius used the infrared observations of the moon by Frank Washington Very and Samuel Pierpont Langley at the Allegheny Observatory in Pittsburgh to calculate the absorption of infrared radiation by atmospheric CO2 and water vapour. Using ‘Stefan’s law’ (better known as the Stefan Boltzmann law), he formulated his greenhouse law.

In its original form, Arrhenius’ greenhouse law reads as follows:if the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression.
This simplified expression is still used today:
ΔF = α ln(C/C0)
Arrhenius’ high absorption values for CO2, however, met criticism by Knut Ångström in 1900, who published the first modern infrared spectrum of CO2 with two absorption bands. Arrhenius replied strongly in 1901 (Annalen der Physik), dismissing the critique altogether.”

It can be mentioned that Ångström was a famous experimentalist and a part of Stockholm University is named after him as “Ångström Laboratories”

The Swedish professor in meteorology Bert Bolin at Stockholm University picked up Ahrrenius ideas when becoming the first chairman of IPCC and promoted them internationally and nationally. However, Bolin was never any good scientist but a very clever politician and his word about funding all types of climate research in Sweden was in fact decided by him prsonally. He was constantly attending the highest Swedish political forum “The Swedish councel for state affairs” and was considered THE expert regarding science. No politician would question his judgement for 20 years regardless of party belonging.

Politics had beaten common sense and scientific methods in the area of climate science. It should also be mentioned that Stockholm University had (has) very strong ties with University of East Anglia. 5 years ago about 25 foreign researcher were working at Stockholm University with climate change research and most of them originated from UEA.

Hi,
Very good summary.
I guess I would have hammered in the nail by pointing out that the aerosol story is thin – because the aerosols are mainly released in the northern hemisphere not the southern yet the northern hemishpere isnt warming faster than the south. I find that part of the story quite convincing.
Cheers

the monolithic MSM is too busy giving space to madmen like Morosov who can’t even understand polls that show CAGW scepticism is not a “fringe belief”:

23 Jan: Slate: Evgeny Morosov: Warning: This Site Contains Conspiracy Theories
Does Google have a responsibility to help stop the spread of 9/11 denialism, anti-vaccine activism, and other fringe beliefs?
People who deny global warming, oppose the Darwinian account of evolution, refuse to see the causal link between HIV and AIDS, and think that 9/11 was an inside job have put the Internet to great use. Initially, the Internet helped them find and recruit like-minded individuals and promote events and petitions favorable to their causes. However, as so much of our public life has shifted online, they have branched out into manipulating search engines, editing Wikipedia entries, harassing scientists who oppose whatever pet theory they happen to believe in, and amassing digitized scraps of “evidence” that they proudly present to potential recruits…
What to do then? Well, perhaps, it’s time to accept that many of these communities aren’t going to lose core members regardless of how much science or evidence is poured on them. Instead, resources should go into thwarting their growth by targeting their potential—rather than existent—members.
Today, anyone who searches for “is global warming real” or “risks of vaccination” or “who caused 9/11?” on Google or Bing is just a few clicks away from joining one of such communities. Given that censorship of search engines is not an appealing or even particularly viable option, what can be done to ensure that users are made aware that all the pseudoscientific advice they are likely to encounter may not be backed by science?
The options aren’t many. One is to train our browsers to flag information that may be suspicious or disputed…
The trick here is to come up with a database of disputed claims that itself would correspond to the latest consensus in modern science—a challenging goal that projects like “Dispute Finder” are tackling head on.
The second—and not necessarily mutually exclusive—option is to nudge search engines to take more responsibility for their index and exercise a heavier curatorial control in presenting search results for issues like “global warming” or “vaccination.”…
Thus, whenever users are presented with search results that are likely to send them to sites run by pseudoscientists or conspiracy theorists, Google may simply display a huge red banner asking users to exercise caution and check a previously generated list of authoritative resources before making up their minds.
In more than a dozen countries Google already does something similar for users who are searching for terms like “ways to die” or “suicidal thoughts” by placing a prominent red note urging them to call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. It may seem paternalistic, but this is the kind of nonintrusive paternalism that might be saving lives without interfering with the search results. Of course, such a move might trigger conspiracy theories of its own—e.g. is Google shilling for Big Pharma or for Al Gore?—but this is a risk worth taking as long as it can help thwart the growth of fringe movements…
It’s not unreasonable to think that denialists of global warming or benefits of vaccination are online friends with other denialists. As such, finding information that contradicts one’s views would be even harder. This is one more reason for Google to atone for its sins and ensure that subjects dominated by pseudoscience and conspiracy theories are given a socially responsible curated treatment.http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/01/anti_vaccine_activists_9_11_deniers_and_google_s_social_search_.single.html

a spook and a media darling?

George Soros Open Society Fellowship:
Fellow: Evgeny Morozov
2008–2009
Evgeny Morozov is an online media and digital activism expert from Belarus. As an Open Society Fellow, he worked on The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, his critically acclaimed book published in January 2011. In it, Morozov punctures popular myths about the power of the internet to undermine authoritarian regimes.
Currently a visiting scholar at Stanford University, Morozov was formerly a Yahoo! fellow at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University and has served as director of new media at Transitions Online, a Prague-based media-development organization. His writing has appeared in the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Newsweek, the Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, Slate, Le Monde, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Review, Foreign Policy, Project Syndicate, Dissent, and many other publications.http://www.soros.org/initiatives/fellowship/fellows/morozov_2008

I confess to being pretty-much a layman when it comes to “climate science”, but surely the atmosphere, together with the oceans, act as a giant evaporative air conditioner that keeps the planet cool, rather than as a “greenhouse” which keeps it warm?

Consider the following thought experiment:

Imagine the earth as it is now, but with the “atmosphere” removed and replaced with a “something” that had none of the properties of our current atmosphere, except that it maintained the equivalent of atmospheric pressure at sea level and was completely transparent to sunlight.

Surely the oceans, now deprived of the ability to shed heat via the evaporative process, would simply get hotter and hotter until they boiled away at 100 degrees C?

Add to your thought experiment the effects of gravity and of the boiled water. The water would not disappear into space but would become part of the atmosphere. At some point there would be a very large amount of water in the atmosphere but still a large amount of water still in the oceans. What happens next?

No, there is no “atmosphere” for the water vapour to become part of. – Imagine our “atmosphere” replaced by an encasing glass globe say, 100 metres above sea level, and some kind of pressure-relief mechanism.

Let’s make it even simpler – imagine we could inject an aerosol into the existing atmosphere to prevent entirely the process of evaporation. We now only have convection of air currents and radiative processes for the oceans to “lose” heat to space.

We know from existing measurements that these processes alone are insufficient to keep pace with the rate of accumulation of heat energy from the sun.

So everything heats up.

Ergo, far from “heating” the planet, the atmosphere ultimately acts to cool it.

Nothing is confusing me Gee Aye – not even your attempts to obfuscate.

If evaporation was not occurring then the oceans would be continually heating up. Since the oceans neither acquire, nor lose heat energy at anything like the same rate as the atmosphere, then the fact the earth is rotating would have little influence on the outcome.

So, the fact remains, evaporation from the oceans to the atmosphere must be dominating influence on our climate, NOT CO2 or anything else.

And since this evaporation process is ultimately a COOLING process, then overall the atmosphere acts to COOL the earth, not HEAT it.

Ergo, the entire “greenhouse theory” is crap, and the state of the global climate is beyond the capacity of Man to influence to any great degree, short of injecting something into the atmosphere which would prevent evaporation.

Water is the coolant. Oceans heat in the tropics, cause clouds. Big ones which go to 70,000 feet sometimes. Cloud tops radiate to space quite well as there’s not much atmosphere above them. Colder water returns to Earth as rain.

This goes on ALL the time in the tropics. Thunderstorms aren’t the occasional events that you might think fom sampling one point.

I hope you don’t mind if I come in here, not with anything to offer, but just an observation.

I studiously stay out of these conversations because they are usually beyond me, but I always read them very carefully, because what they do achieve is to add to the tiny knowledge base I (think I may) have, and I always learn something.

I have my favourite comic strips from newspapers over the years, mainly The Katzenjammer Kids, Asterix The Gaul, and The Wizard of Id.

I was never really a great fan of Charlie Brown, as it always seemed average, but oddly, one Charlie Brown comic panel stood out over my whole life, and it was published as early as the late 60′s early 70′s and I can use it here as an analogy.

Lucy, Linus, and Charlie are laying on their backs on the top of a hill looking up at the clouds.

Lucy: If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formation…What do you think you see, Linus?

Linus: Well, those clouds up there look to me like the map of the British Honduras in the Caribbean….That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor…and that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the stoning of Stephen…I can see the Apostle Paul standing there to one side….

Lucy: Uh huh…That’s very good… What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?

Charlie Brown: Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I changed my mind.

I feel a little like Charlie Brown when I see Posts like this. I can see the clouds, and even though they indicate something, I can’t quite see what those others do. I know that those images Linus can see are there and if I work hard I can begin to make them out. What it brings home to me is that I need to look harder, and then I too, will see what those others see.

I know that Charlie Brown philosophy is pretty basic, but what is happening is that the vast general populace is not even looking for what Charlie Brown sees, let alone what Linus sees.

Sorry to reduce this wonderful Post and comments to the comic book level.

I have a question for you, Dr. Evans, if you don’t mind. You have argued that it is premature to attribute most warming to AGW with high confidence, because of the uncertainty we cannot factor in due to natural variability. In attribution analyses, we need to estimate the sole contribution of AGW to historical warming that is recent.

The central estimate for that contribution is still about 100%?

Proving any greater uncertainty broadens the range of all possible values. However here is clincher: What is good for the goose is also good for the gander? It extrapolates out in both directions. All we have done is shown that Natural forcings could be positive or negative over the recent past. We end up establishing greater uncertainty that does not tell us which direction we may go in.

Try as we all may no scientist ANYWHERE has found the smoking gun that is causing temperature background rises. The alternative candidate for a “natural” warming aside from CO2’s influence cannot be found.

Solar forcing is flat lining, and all volcanic activity flat. Is it not reasonable to proceed to continue to calculate the effects of AGW as similar to all of the recent warming? Given that mildest climate change proponents see more (net negative natural forcing) as well as less (net positive natural forcing) and present their case as solid. What you are proposing is not known certainty. Until we can define accurately the alternatives of a strong natural forcing, we cannot know. This then is not science as no knowable alternative can be found. The most convincing case still remains and is yet to be proven wrong and incorrect by the greater scientific community – the threat of extreme Global Warming potential never left and is still with us.

The resultant evidences of additional budgeted energies manifesting in regional parts of globe such as polar Arctic and the overwhelming evidence of ice fringes of Greenland and Antarctica being eroded by where warmer seas touch those ice packs are signs of extra energy budgets due to melting evidence. We all know about the increasing sea ice for example around Antarctica – we are not talking about the recovery of juvenile thin ice growth due to winter.

We are referring to evidence that ancient ice / historical non-seasonal ice – perhaps 500 to 2000 years old is melting and just beginning. This is where oceanic currents get to this ancient ice. As well the La Nina’s of the last two years have been the warmest minimums since records were made.

And any climate follower would realize – these cycles are simply how climate equalizes occasionally – by wind and oceanic current. It is not what some think – new ice age cometh or that we are let off the hook over global warming to the end of this century and beyond. That is the thing – this warming trend may osculate like a sine wave but the “cine wave doth creep ever upwards”. It may not plateau for at least another 200 hundred years depending on we do.

The way we perceive climate as opposed to present is short term memory. Yearly subtle shifts in regions and in others dramatic and alarming trends would indicate there will come a time where the certainty of the warming influences overtakes subtle incremental. We will then know as will the general public that all bets are off as to where it is headed. The signs are just beginning. It is when those forcings begin to affect the minimum influences of winter and maximum peaks into our summers.

For these facts we would also have to ignore well over various 100 science disciplines and their web sites with data showing, detailing and documenting clearly manifest evidences of an increased warming budget globally. Therefore we can conclude that the uncertainty is mostly in the direction of positive natural forcings.

As to the Hansen Graph. Somewhat misleading graph as it shows un adjusted data since 1988! Move with science and be fair and even handed and so should climate anti-warmists. Do not distort the science or authors please.

In 1988, Hanson was predicting what the temperature would be now (2012). It is not a distortion of the science to point out that his prediction was wrong. Or is Saint Hanson off limits?

You seemed to have missed the central point of the post – which is that the argument is about the direction of the Feedbacks, would you like to stay on topic? Do you have anything definitive to say about feedbacks one way or the other?

You know – it’s not a problem to say that you don’t know what is causing the warming – it is a problem for a political movement to establish a path for society when it “doesn’t know” what is causing the warming – yes it cuts both ways.

If the Earths climate is both (1) a complex dynamic system, and (2) governed by +ve feedback to CO2, then how has it demonstrably remained stable enough to support complex life forms for at least 600 million years, even in the face of massive shocks such as meteor strikes and supervolcanos with CO2 levels in the atmosphere up to 20x higher than today?

Extinction and evolution my friend. Add “of mankind” as plausible when it comes to meteor strikes.

The famous Hansen attacks on this guy continue.

The A B or C assessment done in 1988 is a prime example. Also a mistake by anti-warmists along with any science that moves on and re-cablirates the science which he has done. Much noise about this on US sites. OFF topic here.

Please: When you quote a scientist or graph for that matter – do not lock your arguments on out of dates, incorrect information – there’s enough of that out there.

And well they try don’t they – to discredit him. That’s why attacks on him are so bitter.

The irony. The names this bloke has been called. And anti-warmists can’t even see the beam in their eyes over it.

Actually Ross, there’s another guy out there who regularly makes “predictions” and then “adjusts” them when reality turns out different.

His name is Harold Camping, and he keeps predicting the Rapture, the return of the Messiah, and the End of the World will occur on a certain date.

Then, when it doesn’t happen, he simply “adjusts” his prediction in the light of “observed changes” (IE it didn’t happen), EXACTLY as has been done on your septic science graph in relation to Hansen’s “adjusted predictions”..

Ross, a “prediction” is just that – a forecast of something that is allegedly going to happen. If “predictions” can be constantly “adjusted” in the light of what actually happens (observed changes), then eventually EVERY prediction would exactly match what was actually happening, and be 100% correct, regardless of what the original prediction was.

Example: I confidentally predict in twenty year’s time the earth will be 20 degrees C cooler than it is now. Furthermore, I will happily bet you a million dollars that my prediction turns out correct to a degree or two, PROVIDED I can “adjust” it every six months or so in the light of OBSERVED CHANGES to global temperatures, as time goes by.

What a load of complete, illogical balderdash.

Only a handful of diehard Christian religious fanatics takes Harold Camping’s constantly “readjusted” predictions seriously, and for good reason.

Only a handful of diehard Climastrology religious fanatics take Hansen’s “readjusted” predictions seriously, for the same reason.

All that we need to show in this article is that the models being used to make predictions are not up to the job and despite the claim that “they match observations surprisingly well” it is quite clear that they are, in fact, rubbish.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – - that’s all.”
(Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 6)

Jo and David, WUWT, Big Mac, Bishop Hill etc are vital to our understanding of the CAGW scientific debate, and may they never give up their fight for the integrity of the scientific method. however, before i go back to the tennis and cricket, i will post further about the MASTERS.

Bishop Hill has a thread on a piece by Leo Hickman – and James Ball – in the Guardian re the BIG PLAYERS in the CAGW scam. the problem is the Greens/enviro-MENTALISTS with the help of the MSM keep up a fake narrative that these BIG PLAYERS are the “climate deniers”/”climate change deniers” who are to be ridiculed:

24 Jan: Bishop Hill: Cameron’s climate connections
Leo Hickman has a fascinating report about a series of “networking” meetings at which businesses paid up to £1800 a head for access to ministers, government officials and special advisers…
Among the public sector employees to have attended the networking evenings is Ben Moxham, David Cameron’s special adviser for energy and the environment and a former employee of BP, who was at an event on climate change in November…
Senior executives from companies including BP, Shell, and the Russian oil giant Gazprom have attended the company’s climate change events, while Apple, Google and Citigroup executives were among those at other networking evenings….
Helpfully, the full list of attendees at the meetings has also been published. Familar names are:
Emily Shuckburgh
Brian Hoskins
Chris Anastasi (appears in the Climategate 2 emails a lot)
Ian Andrews (Serious Organised Crime Agency!!!)
Lord Hunt (ex head of Met Office)
Crispin Tickell (deep green)http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/1/24/camerons-climate-connections.html

read in full for all Crispin’s career history, awards, linkages, etc:

Crispin Tickell
Sir Crispin Tickell has long been a pioneer in linking environmental and in particular climate change to the worlds of politics and business. For many years he was an informal adviser on such issues to successive British Prime Ministers. Until recently he was Director of the Policy Foresight Programme at the James Martin 21st Century School at Oxford University. He is associated with several other British universities as well as universities in the United States.
Most of his career was in the Diplomatic Service…
He then became Warden of Green College, Oxford (1990-97), and set up the Green College Centre for Environmental Policy and Understanding, which later became the Policy Foresight Programme at the James Martin School…
Trustee of the Reuters Foundation, now Thomson-Reuters Foundation 2000-
Trustee of TERI Europe 2003 –http://www.crispintickell.com/page109.html

the rest of the monolithic MSM is just as compromised, but Thomson Reuters is so upfront with their advocacy:

Thomson Reuters Point Carbon – About Us
Thomson Reuters Point Carbon’s in-depth knowledge of power, gas and CO2 emissions market dynamics positions us as the number one supplier of unrivalled market intelligence of these markets. Our staff includes experts in international and regional climate policy, mathematical and economic modeling, forecasting methodologies, risk management and market reporting.
Thomson Reuters Point Carbon now has more than 55,000 clients, including the world’s major energy companies, financial institutions, organisations and governments, in over 150 countries. Reports are translated from English into Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, French and Spanish.
Thomson Reuters Point Carbon has offices in Oslo (Head Office), Washington D.C., London, Tokyo, Beijing, Kiev, Hamburg, Zurich and Malmo.http://www.pointcarbon.com/aboutus/

I’ve been reading this blog since day 1, and not once have I seen Dr Evans referred to as Dr David M. W. Evans. What’s with the new intials? Is it am Americanism to invoke authority? In a year will it be Dr David M. W. Evans III or something?

“David” the name, is rather popular, so is Evans. There are real estate agents pharmacies, & businesses run by “David Evans”. Indeed, there is even another “David M W Evans” in Western Australia. (Fortunately, the W stands for a different name.)

April 2008: Time Magazine Special: A Green Future: Bryan Walsh: Does Global Warming Compromise National Security?
But the real transformation came not from a Democrat but a Republican — the veteran Virginia Sen. John Warner. Though Warner had voted against similar measures in the past, this time around he not only supported the bill — which calls for cutting greenhouse gas emissions to 2005 levels by 2012, and then 70% below 2005 levels by 2050 — but co-sponsored it with Sen. Joseph Lieberman. “We had a bipartisan breakthrough, thanks to the wonderful John Warner,” says Boxer.
Climate change is usually characterized as an environmental threat, but it wasn’t melting icebergs or endangered polar bears that made Warner change his mind. “I have focused above all on issues of national security,” Warner said after the bill passed committee. “I see the problem of global climate change fitting squarely within that focus.” For Warner, unchecked global warming could create a world that is inherently more dangerous for the U.S. Acting to mitigate climate change was another way of keeping America safe. It’s a message that resonates with Americans who would sooner log a tree than hug it, and raises the possibility that conservatives and liberals might find common ground on climate change. “I find [conservatives] skeptical on this issue,” says James Woolsey, a right-leaning Democrat who was director of the Central Intelligence Agency between 1993 and 1995, under former President Bill Clinton. “But when I mention the connection to security, suddenly things like solar power start looking a lot better.”…
Last year saw a raft of studies tracing the linkage between global warming and global instability, and none was more influential than a report released last April by the CNA Corporation, a Pentagon-funded think tank. A team of 11 high-level retired officers — including Marine General Anthony Zinni, former head of U.S. Central Command, which has responsibility for the Middle East — termed climate change a dangerous “threat multiplier.” If unchecked, the report warned, warming could lead to resource wars, environmental refugees and failed states in already vulnerable regions of Asia, Africa and the Middle East — the very places where you’ll find American troops today.
The retired officers who made up the CNA panel are hardly environmentalists, and many said they came to the report skeptical of climate change. That was then. “It’s now a mainstream security issue, not a fringe movement for tree-huggers and Birkenstock wearers,” says Sherri Goodman, who chaired the CNA report and served as deputy Undersecretary of Defense for environmental security in the Clinton Administration — a position that does not exist today…

In a recent paper, James Woolsey imagined a dialogue between John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club, and General George Patton on climate change. In Woolsey’s telling, Muir cares about the environment, and Patton about security, but in subject after subject — alternative energy, increasing efficiency, improving the electrical grid — they come to the same green conclusion, if for different reasons. “It just happens that the two ideas produce the same outcome,” says Woolsey. “There is something there for everybody.” http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1730759_1731383_1731632,00.html

if CAGW were such a “national security threat” as top neocon Woolsey claims, do u think the following EXEMPTION would make sense?

US Military ‘Worst Polluter on Planet’
By Project Censored
In spite of the evidence, the environmental impact of the US military goes largely unaddressed by environmental organizations and was not the focus of any discussions or proposed restrictions at the recent UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen…
The extensive global operations of the US military (wars, interventions, and secret operations on over one thousand bases around the world and six thousand facilities in the United States) are not counted against US greenhouse gas limits…
While official accounts put US military usage at 320,000 barrels of oil a day, that does not include fuel consumed by contractors, in leased or private facilities, or in the production of weapons. The US military is a major contributor of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that most scientists believe is to blame for climate change. Steve Kretzmann, director of Oil Change International, reports, “The Iraq war was responsible for at least 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) from March 2003 through December 2007… . That war emits more than 60 percent that of all countries… . This information is not readily available … because military emissions abroad are exempt from national reporting requirements under US law and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.”…
Environmental journalist Johanna Peace reports that military activities will continue to be exempt, based on an executive order signed by President Barack Obama that calls for other federal agencies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Peace states, “The military accounts for a full 80 percent of the federal government’s energy demand.”
As it stands, the Department of Defense is the largest polluter in the world, producing more hazardous waste than the five largest US chemical companies combined…
Militarizing the Arctic
Meanwhile, as if the US military has not contaminated enough of the world already, a new five-year strategic plan by the US Navy outlines the militarization of the Arctic to defend national security, potential undersea riches, and other maritime interests, anticipating the frozen Arctic Ocean to be open waters by the year 2030. This plan strategizes expanding fleet operations, resource development, research, and tourism, and could possibly reshape global transportation.
While the plan discusses “strong partnerships” with other nations (Canada, Norway, Denmark, and Russia have also made substantial investments in Arctic-capable military armaments), it is quite evident that the US is serious about increasing its military presence and naval combat capabilities. The US, in addition to planned naval rearmament, is stationing thirty-six F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jets, which is 20 percent of the F-22 fleet, in Anchorage, Alaska…
Some action items in the US Navy Arctic Roadmap document include:
Assessing current and required capability to execute undersea warfare, expeditionary warfare, strike warfare, strategic sealift, and regional security cooperation.
Assessing current and predicted threats in order to determine the most dangerous and most likely threats in the Arctic region in 2010, 2015, and 2025.
Focusing on threats to US national security, although threats to maritime safety and security may also be considered…
Adapted from an article in Censored 2011 edited by Mickey Huff and Peter Phillips, Seven Stories Press.http://peacemagazine.org/archive/v27n1p08.htm

Back from holidays … and finally got my internets up and working again (don’t get me started on that one)…. so O/T as I usually do Apologies if this has been covered before:

A colleague forwarded an interesting piece to me about an Australian Government report which appears to have been “disappeared” down the proverbial memory hole. The offending piece has to do with the long-term supply of oil in Australia and the implications for transport. It was prepared by the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) and has the following name:

Actually, Report 117 is something different entirely. Almost as if BITRE refuses to acknowledge the original Report 117 ever happened. Lucky for us the report leaked to the web and can easily be Googled, at the AIE web site for example:

Just look at the ocean temperatures graph. A graph starting from a random point in 2004 is meaningless. I could have started that graph in 2005 and the red line would be a perfect fit.

The IPCC 1990 comparison graph under “air temperatures”. In 2010 on the graph it is spot on the “medium estimate”, and you think you can mount a case against AGW based on the following year? That year being 2011 which be all accounts was a pretty warm year.

So to me they are two examples of meaningless graphs cobbled together to make a pre-determined point.

The point on the ocean argo temp graph is that there is NOTHING in the science that says that the ocean temperatures are expected to follow the red line starting at the temperature that was first measured by the argo system. So drawing that red line from that starting point and claiming “they don’t match” is highly flawed.

Do you see the line “All the data here is impeccably sourced — from satellites, the Argo buoys, and weather balloons” – this is used to suggest that there exists a red line as per the argo temp graph somewhere in the science that says “this is what the argo temps should be if the IPCC’s version of AGW is in any way correct.” Which if course is a crock.

And lastly at risk of talking to myself we have the classic:
“All the data here is impeccably sourced — from satellites, the Argo buoys, and weather balloons.[18]”

Where the [18] suggests that there is a credible reference. In fact the reference, for anyone who bothered reading it, is:
” [18] In particular, we have not quoted results from land thermometers, or from sparse sampling by buckets and XBT’s at sea. Land thermometers are notoriously susceptible to localized effects – see Is the Western Climate Establishment Corrupt? by the same author: jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/corruption/climate-corruption.pdf.”

Which of course is a slightly flawed loop reference saying “this is accurate because look I said the same thing in the past.”

MattB,
Very nice. Say something, and then add a plethora of comments so any reply is far removed from the actual comment itself. Lovely ploy.

You say in Comment 40.1.1 the following:

All these graphs, as correctly identified by Tony, are Linusesque.

At no stage, EVER, did I say that or did I intend that inference to be taken. In fact, the opposite was the case, and the intent, as anyone can plainly read there. This is your imagination running away with itself.

I can take what you usually say with a grain of salt, but when you offer a definitive translation of what I said, and then offer that as fact, you are going a little long way beyond the pale.

As is always the case with your lot, they rearrange things to suit their own agenda.

I was waiting for you to see what I did there. No offence intended Tony – clearly (to me at least) you do not agree with me, and I wasn’t trying to suggest you were – I was more being a cheeky smartass.

makes it a bit hard to put a reply under a specific post… 40.1.1.1.1 says

Which of course is a slightly flawed loop reference saying “this is accurate because look I said the same thing in the past.”

could you elaborate or specify? Scientists often cite themselves (sometimes too often). It legitimately gets past peer review if the cited paper contains data and analysis that support the statements made in the new paper. They might not say exactly what I quoted from you above but they are often saying, “this conclusion has support because look here is another study I did that finds the same thing”.

Yes but in a scientific publication you’d be referencing a piece of peer reviewed science that has gone through the process. Rather than referring to a non-reviewed rant about the conspiracy of temperature station tricks. You can;t substantiate a claim by referring to the previous time you made an unsubstantiated claim. “That bike is mine because I say it is and I also said it yesterday”

Peer reviewed guarantees that any paper will support the peer consensus – papers that contradict the peer consensus don’t get published. Peer review has one function – to identify plagiarism, otherwise its censorship. I’ve been through the peer review process in having a paper published, and it’s all about making sure it fits the accepted paradigm.

That is another problem with mainstream science, apart from an ignorance of the scientific method.

Well since he published something by making sure it fitted an excepted paradigm, I’m sure it was not very substantial. His description of the process of publication does not fit with my experience, the guidelines of peer reviewing journals, my interactions with journal editors when I am reviewing papers, or when I guide reviewers in my role as a subject editor. Boring papers that question nothing don’t cut it.

Yes the scientific publication has been through hoops of different sorts but you don’t have to be peer reviewed to cite yourself. I might, for example have published an article recently stating that India’s efforts against the West Indies were flattering since their bowlers had poor batsmen and their attack was exposed for what it is by the English. I might now be preparing an article stating a similar thing to explain their poor performance in Australia and remind the reader of a similar article I wrote about the England tour.

I think that citing myself is valid in this case and I’d leave it up to the reader to make a judgement as to whether my self citation and my arguement was justified. I’d hope if they disagreed that they would do me the honour of providing a reason for disagreeing and not just wave my argument away by saying that I cited myself without any elaboration. I think your post was pretty poor Matt.

Jo and all other posters, this is a rather clear way of exposing CAGW myth. Pressuring local MP’s to take action is a good idea and sending it around to friends who are still believe in the catastrophic predictions (i.e. Tim Flannery).

My knowledge regarding this topic is limited. Many other sceptical scientists (that I have read) suggest that we could be on the way to another ice age in the future or significant cooling. What is David’s opinion on this considering his research suggests a minor but still increasing air temperature level?

If CO2 is governed by -ve feedback, as per the sceptic argument, than as a species we will hit the next glacial period within the current ice age with elevated CO2 levels which will assist our survival by fostering the biosphere.

i tried to find this comment from Ross which i received via email but blowed if i can find it so a cut and paste will have to do (Jo can you expand on the amount of comments in the “recent commets field”)

Note i did not reproduce the comment in its entirety only what is relevant.

Jo – you got it all wrong.

Warming maximum in the tropical upper troposphere deduced from thermal winds Robert J. Allen & Steven C. Sherwood Abstract Climate models and theoretical expectations have predicted that the upper troposphere should be warming faster than the surface. Surprisingly, direct temperature observations from radiosonde and satellite data have often not shown this expected trend. However, non-climatic biases have been found in such measurements. Here we apply the thermal-wind equation to wind measurements from radiosonde data, which seem to be more stable than the temperature data. We derive estimates of temperature trends for the upper troposphere to the lower stratosphere since 1970. Over the period of observations, we find a maximum warming trend of 0.65 0.47 K per decade near the 200 hPa pressure level, below the tropical tropopause. Warming patterns are consistent with model predictions except for small discrepancies close to the tropopause. Our findings are inconsistent with the trends derived from radiosonde temperature datasets and from NCEP reanalyses of temperature and wind fields. The agreement with models increases confidence in current model-based predictions of future climate change.

The graph your looking at (lying eyes) is most likely an aberrant bias. Science moves on – but anti-warmists can get hung up on the lack of explanations.

In summary the above statement is claiming that the RS data shows no hot spot but this is because the data has a bias and by using the GPS data from the sonde they can calulate the wind shear and from the wind shear they can calculate the temp and this temp data shows a warming of 0.65 per decade.

I have asked KR for evidence of this bias and what affect it has on the data but KR has fallen strangely silent so i will assume there is no evidence of said bias. For Ross’s sake i will assume that there is a bias in the temp data and will merely focus on the GPS data.

First question i would ask Ross is

1) Not all RS come with a GPS, how many RS used since the 1950′s were fitted with a GPS, in other words how big a sample can Allen and co use to do the wind shear calculation.

Essentially what Allen and co are claiming is that the thermometer has an error of about 0.5C which of course is a rather large error, suprisingly this error has not been picked up at the factory and they have continued to produce poor quality thermometers for decades no.

Even more suprisingly they could produce a GPS that even with such a large resolution (which of course means the reported position can swing wildly around in both vertical and horizontal directions) can actually produce a temp down to two decimal places and bizzarely can be more accurate than the thermonmeter.

If so then i am suprised Vaisala even bother to mount a thermometer on the thing in the first place.

1. That radiosonde data showed non-climatic bias
2. Agreement was reached using a calibrated formula for wind (testing temperature transiency).
3. Agreement to models was reached.
4. Climate can radically alter in wild swings as it is a chaotic system. I.E. Global Warming could suddenly speed up.
5. It was found in the latest studies that the Hot Spot is a transient phenomena – it is not static – thereby hard to capture as static (over time) temperature.

Like many warmists who visit this site, you throw around the term “Ad Hominem” like it’s confetti at a wedding, yet you also show that you have no idea what an ad hominem is.

Let me give you an example of an ad hominem.Richard Linzen is 71 years old and he disagrees with Michael Mann.
Michael Mann is only 46 years old.
So what would Michael Mann know about global warming?

Now that’s an ad hominem.
M. Mann’s age is irrelevant to arguments about global warming.

“Michael Mann is a liar”. Is an insult. If it can be shown that he has lied, then it is relevant to whether we should accept his arguments. If there is no evidence that he has lied then the statement remains an insult and is defamatory.

“Michael Mann is too young to know anything about climate change”. Is an ad hominem. M. Mann’s age is not relevant to the argument. Whoever says such a thing is suggesting that you should not believe M. Mann because of some irrelevant fact.

It is reasonable to assume that if a person is running a scam, that they would be lying. If they are not lying, then they are merely ignorant of the facts, or they are deluding themselves and others.

I’m surprised at the large uncertainty on the GPS velocities. Even vertical velocity is better than that in my experience (down to a few mm/sec noise). It seems to be little known that GPS velocities AREN’T differentiated positions but are done directly from the doppler shifts.

I am not saying the comment was not there its just that i could not find it, hence my request to expand on the list of recent comments because when you get a heap of comments all at once relatively new comments drop off the list in a very short time so then you have to trawl through the entire thread to find it.

This is topic of real interest to me. And I was here ~ a couple months ago and found a rich reward in intelligent comments, from a skeptics point of view, to read.
There is now a dilution of the quality of comments caused by all these warmist trolls pushing their disruptive bs. I gave up reading because there was so much warmist trollip. We understand that their are warmists that have other points of view, but we don’t come to a skeptic site to hear that.
Skeptic comments apparently rarely or never get allowed onto the warmist sites. Skeptics and warmists can fight it out at neutral sites. Why compromise our sites for the sake of warmists? Just my opinion.

The warmista trolls are out in force because Dr. Evans’ arguments are so persuasve. He clearly demonstrates (using uncontroversial, publicly available data) that the scientists who claim to be able to predict the climate can do nothing of the sort.

They have to try to swamp this threat with counter-claims, no matter how irrational, to try to prevent people like you from reading it.

As a general rule, the more hysterical the trolls become, the better the original post. If the trolls bother you, just read the main post — as you have noted, they rarely add anything useful to the discussion.

Regarding Hansen [snip], it’s noteworthy that CO2 emissions match Scenario C from that paper, with a much lower than expected increase in CH4 and other greenhouse gases – Scenario A simply did not happen.

2) Scenario ‘C’ assumed that there would be a “drastic curtailment” of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, such that the emission growth rate would be zero by 2000.

What really happened? Well, anthropogenic emissions continued to accelerate (“Business as Usual”), but atmospheric CO2 concentration followed Scenario ‘C’ — what Hansen assumed would be the result of a “drastic curtailment” of emissions.

————————————————————(Well, the results of Scenario ‘C’ have been achieved, if not the antecedents — perhaps they should declare victory and drop the whole scam?)
————————————————————

What this sequence of events does is clearly falsify Hansen’s (and KR’s, and every other warmer’s) assumption that anthropogenic CO2 is the main cause of increasing atmospheric CO2. If this assumption was right, then accelerating anthropogenic CO2 would immediately result in accelerating atmospheric CO2 concentrations, as Hansen clearly assumed.

BobC – The usual argument about Hansen’s model from skeptics is that it was off by a factor of 4 in warming from Scenario A – a projection, not a prediction, of what might happen with a particular emissions pattern.

Given various and sundry events as time went by, including the Montreal Protocol, the folding of the Soviet Union, increased capture of methane at oil wells due to regulations and technology improvements, etc., greenhouse gases did not increase at the Scenario A levels, but closer instead to Scenario B or C, in particular in the non-CO2 greenhouse gases. Hansen’s B/C scenarios (which were quite close up to 2000) and model for those is off by about 25%, not 400%.

But that doesn’t mean greenhouse gases didn’t increase over the last 30 years. And small inaccuracies in a 25 year old prediction, which didn’t fully take into account some forcings (such as black carbon/aerosols), and with a climate sensitivity value rather higher than currently thought to be the case – that certainly doesn’t demonstrate that “that Humans do not cause (and hence can’t control) atmospheric CO2 concentrations”.

—

In fact, since our economic activities directly affected the amount of greenhouse gases, this demonstrates that humans do control atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

BobC – The usual argument about Hansen’s model from skeptics is that it was off by a factor of 4 in warming from Scenario A – a projection, not a prediction, of what might happen with a particular emissions pattern.

Scenario A involved a prediction that CO2 atmospheric concentrations would accelerate due to anthropogenic emissions accelerating.

Anthropogenic emissions did accelerate — atmospheric CO2 concentration continued increasing at the same rate it has for the last 55 years: ~0.45%/year.

Therefore, the prediction that atmospheric CO2 concentrations would follow anthropogenic emissions is falsified — atmospheric concentration followed Scenario C, which Hansen predicted would only occur if anthropogenic emissions were capped by 2000.

Given various and sundry events as time went by, including the Montreal Protocol, the folding of the Soviet Union, increased capture of methane at oil wells due to regulations and technology improvements, etc., greenhouse gases did not increase at the Scenario A levels, but closer instead to Scenario B or C

You must be the only warmist saying this — most of the publicity is claims that emissions are rapidly increasing. Perhaps we can expect the next IPCC report to say that there’s not a problem, as emissions are under control?

But that doesn’t mean greenhouse gases didn’t increase over the last 30 years.

Who says they didn’t? They have been increasing at the same rate for 55 years, ever since continuous measurements at Mauna Loa started. If you’re trying for a straw man here, you need to try harder.

And small inaccuracies in a 25 year old prediction, which didn’t fully take into account some forcings (such as black carbon/aerosols), and with a climate sensitivity value rather higher than currently thought to be the case – that certainly doesn’t demonstrate that “that Humans do not cause (and hence can’t control) atmospheric CO2 concentrations”.

It doesn’t demonstrate that we can control atmospheric concentration of CO2, either, or that CO2 has any detectable effect on the climate.
Your basic case is still unproven. It is up to the people who claim that they can predict the climate to prove it.

The fact that actual measurements of climate sensitivity (see also Idso’s “natural experiments”) are much smaller than the sensitivity that Hansen deduces from incomplete Paleodata; and that the actual measured lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere is orders of magnitude shorter than the hundreds of years theoretical predictions that Hansen uses indicates that his projections predictions are junk (if we needed anything other than their lack of predictive skill).

In fact, since our economic activities directly affected the amount of greenhouse gases, this demonstrates that humans do control atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

Major non-sequitur here, KR. (Perhaps your brain turns to a pumpkin after midnight?) Our economic activities directly affect the amount of CO2 that we emit. This does not prove that we control atmospheric concentration of CO2. Hansen assumed that we could when he constructed his Scenarios, and the data since has shown him to be mistaken.

We can also cause earthquakes as a result of our economic activities — this does not imply we can control naturally occuring earthquakes.

Therefore, the prediction that atmospheric CO2 concentrations would follow anthropogenic emissions is falsified — atmospheric concentration followed Scenario C, which Hansen predicted would only occur if anthropogenic emissions were capped by 2000.

Please consider the difference between a prediction and a projection.

A prediction makes a statement about “what will be”. A projection makes a statement about “what will be if certain things happen“.

You are treating the early Hansen scenarios as predictions, when they are projections. When the early Hansen model is run with actual emissions, it’s within ~25% – not a bad model at all, especially considering it’s 25 years old.

KR
January 26, 2012 at 3:05 am
BobC
Please consider the difference between a prediction and a projection.

A prediction makes a statement about “what will be”. A projection makes a statement about “what will be if certain things happen“.

OK, so a ‘projection’ is a conditional ‘prediction’. Most predictions depend on something, so this is mostly specious.

I understand your desire to give Hansen a “Mulligan” on this, but failure is still failure, regardless of where in the several (stated and unstated) assumptions that Hansen goes wrong.

1) Hansen ‘projected’ that the world would warm rapidly IF we didn’t “drastically curtail” anthropogenic CO2 emissions.

2) We didn’t “drastically curtail” CO2 emissions — in fact they closely followed the “Business as Usual” growth curve.

3) The world DID NOT warm rapidly.

What about this failure looks like a win to you?

The fact that atmospheric CO2 concentrations did not accelerate in concert with anthropogenic CO2 emissions simply means that Hansen’s assumption that this had to occur was wrong. It is very unlikely that this is the only assumption in Hansen’s models that is wrong.

The only crisis involving CAGW is a predicted crisis (or, if you insist, a crisis predicted IF we don’t drastically curtail CO2 emissions). For this projected/predicted disaster to have any credibility at all, the models have to start demonstrating predictive skill. So far, they have none.

[I must apologize, my earlier post said just 'CO2' - I meant anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcings, things under our control, not just CO2, and miswrote. That was incorrect.]

BobC – There’s a strong thread I see in many of these discussions, which is to only look at a single factor. Greenhouse gas emissions (anthropogenic) include CO2, methane, CFC’s, ozone, NO2, etc, and all of these have some effect. CO2 is not the only driver of climate. It just happens to be the largest current forcing (changing factor), and it’s one under our control.

Hansen’s early model projections included expected (at the time) increases in all of these factors. As it turned out, methane and CFC emissions dropped considerably, meaning that the total forcing approximated the Scenario B/C levels. Hence comparing those Scenario A to a completely different set of emissions (the real ones) is a strawman argument.

When the early Hansen model is run with actual emissions, it’s within ~25% – not a bad model at all, especially considering it’s 25 years old.

Not when the model is run with actual emissions, as that would be Scenario ‘A’ (Business as Usual), which is far off. Your statement only makes sense if it says “run with actual atmospheric concentrations“.

You (and Hansen and all the other warmists) are still trying to pretend that anthropogenic emissions and atmospheric concentrations are joined at the hip.

This assumption has been falsified by the facts:
1) Emissions followed Scenario ‘A’ (Business as Usual)

I did read the link. Once again, the NOAA index uses a formula which includes quantity and the presumed known radiative forcing of the gas in question. In other words its sensitivity. An index is a representation of observation or measurement.
If the amount of gas in the atmosphere is apples, then the radiative forcing by the gas is oranges.

Considering Hansens projections are a product of gas quantity and sensitivity, it leaves one with two options as to why Hansens scenario charts don’t match measured temperatures, ergo:

A-) Hansen overprojected the number of tons of gas emitted within the time frame 1988-1998
B-) Hansen over estimated sensitivity.

You seem to claim A is the case. You say “CO2 has increased as expected – methane and CFC’s did not.”
In this case, you need to come up with some numbers depicting how much less CH4 (and other trace GHGs)was emitted, what effect this has had on temperatures using Hansens sensitivity figure.

In the Hansen paper you linked, he says in the 100 yr control run (which is based on fixed atmospheric rates at 1958) he uses 1400ppb for CH4 and 292.6ppb for N2O.
Looking at figure 2 of the NOAA link, we see that CH4 has increased in a fairly linear fashion even through the period in question, 1988-98. In 88 it was about 1690ppb and in 98 about 1760ppb. WHAT DID HANSEN THINK CH4 LEVEL WOULD BE?

Likewise, N2O rose from about 306ppb in 88 to 313ppb in 98 in a fairly linear fashion. WHAT DID HANSEN THINK N2O LEVEL WOULD BE?

The divergance between observed and Hansen projected temperatures cannot be explained by the lack of Ch4 or N2O.

Anthropogenic emissions, an essential part of the Hansen projections, include CO2, CH4, NO2, CFC’s – the “trace gas emissions” Hansen discussed with Congress. CO2 concentrations continued to increase at close to pre-1988 rates, CH4 and CFC’s (more powerful per molecule, incidentally) did not. Hence the total trace gas concentrations Hansen was modeling increased at roughly Scenario C levels.

Again, you are falling into the error of a single cause.

—

Baa Humbug

A-) Hansen overprojected the number of tons of gas emitted within the time frame 1988-1998
B-) Hansen over estimated sensitivity.

No on A, yes on B.

Hansen presented a number of “what-if” scenarios for greenhouse gas increases. Actual increases of total greenhouse gases are closest to his Scenario C, for which his overestimated sensitivity, not fully accounting for aerosol effects or black carbon/soot, etc., lead to about a 25% error.

This is what Hansen assumed when he constructed his various scenarios, and the data since then has proven him wrong.

…and isotopic analysis demonstrates it’s anthropogenic origin.

Actually, isotopic analysis is unable to distinguish between CO2 from fossil fuels and volcanos. To attribute a given fraction of the C12-enriched CO2 to fossil fuel burning, one has to estimate the number of volcanos and amounts of CO2 they emit. This is not a known number — since 1991, the estimated number of undersea volcanos has gone from 10,000 to > 3 million. Precision isotopic analysis of anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 fraction is impossible in this environment of uncertainty and rapidly changing estimates.

Given that the isotopic estimates of anthropogenic fraction are in stark opposition to the many empirical studies (as opposed to theoretical models) of the carbon cycle, I would not put very much credence in the isotopic conclusions.

The reduction in CO2 concentration from an addition to the atmosphere comprises multiple exponential decays including equalization with the ocean, biological sequestration, weathering, etc – it has a half-life of ~35-40 years, with a long tail on the last 20-30% of thousands of years. We discussed this on previous threads here – I’m not going to repeat that conversation.

The rest of your post consists of Appeal to Complexity fallacies, and a repeat of the “single cause” focus on CO2 as opposed to total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.

—

My online time will be limited for a while – I will attempt to check back in a few days.

Hansen presented a number of “what-if” scenarios for greenhouse gas increases. Actual increases of total greenhouse gases are closest to his Scenario C, for which his overestimated sensitivity,

To be able to make that statement you must have access to information that shows scenario C as the closest to current emissions.

Considering Hansen states in his paper that “Scenario C drastically reduces trace gas growth between 1990 and 2000 such that greenhouse climate forcing ceases to increase after 2000. page 9343 of your link.

You also need to read the 2nd paragraph on page 9345 where he clearly stipulates what scenario C is i.e. “the sources just balance the sinks” and backs it up with Fig. 2 which shows a flat DeltaT after the year 2000 for scenario C.

Do you have the numbers to back up your claim that scenario C is closest to actual measurements?

Furthermore, you claim Hansen overestimated sensitivity. Can you produce the sensitivity Hansen used so that we all will know what level of sensitivity is too high in future discussions.

KR
January 26, 2012 at 6:41 am
BobC – I have to conclude that you did not read my previous post.

Easy to do when posts pass in the (e)mail.

So, you want me to comment on this:

Anthropogenic emissions, an essential part of the Hansen projections, include CO2, CH4, NO2, CFC’s – the “trace gas emissions” Hansen discussed with Congress. CO2 concentrations continued to increase at close to pre-1988 rates, CH4 and CFC’s (more powerful per molecule, incidentally) did not. Hence the total trace gas concentrations Hansen was modeling increased at roughly Scenario C levels.

So, I conclude that Hansen’s assumption that the other trace GH gases were correlated with anthropogenic CO2 was false. What about this sounds like success?

I’ve noticed that modelers routinely run their models assuming that CO2 increases at 1%/year (even though it actually has been increasing at ~0.5%/year for the last 55 years) “to account for the increases in other trace GH gases”. If this correlation is false (as you have just admitted), then all of these model runs and the projections they produced are crap.

Again, you are falling into the error of a single cause.

You are failing to understand that the entire CAGW scare (including the demands for massive changes in the world’s economy) is based on the ability of climate models to predict future climate. This is what must be demonstrated (and has not) — ad hoc excuses for past failures doesn’t hack it.

KR
January 26, 2012 at 6:59 am
BobC – Human CO2 emissions are 130x volcanic emissions. Minor sea-bed vents are not major volcanoes, and certainly not major CO2 sources. Pull the other one – it’s got bells on it.

Right… Estimates of number of volcanos have increased 300-fold in the last 20 years. Nice that you think you know the answer, but I don’t think that’s going to convince anyone else.

The reduction in CO2 concentration from an addition to the atmosphere comprises multiple exponential decays including equalization with the ocean, biological sequestration, weathering, etc – it has a half-life of ~35-40 years, with a long tail on the last 20-30% of thousands of years. We discussed this on previous threads here – I’m not going to repeat that conversation.

Sure… If you can’t respond to specific arguments, then just assume an air of superiority and claim that you have already proven your case. For those who may have some doubts about how much self delusion is involved in this implicit claim, the thread KR refers to is here. The main weakness in his arguments on this subject was that there was no data supporting them, and all the available empirical data contradicted them. Other than that, he did a swell job promoting these fantasy theories.

The rest of your post consists of Appeal to Complexity fallacies…

No KR, that’s what you just did. I have consistently maintained that empirical data trumps overly complex and unverified models, while you have consistently taken the position well described by Eddington: “No data should be accepted until it is verified by [AGW] theory.”

OK, now lets render this equation in English. It looks complex, but it’s not.

T(n) is pronounced “T sub n”. It is the temperature “T” at time “n”. So T sub n plus one, written as T(n+1), is the temperature during the following time period. In this case we’re using years, so it would be the next year’s temperature.

F is the forcing, in watts per square metre. This is the total of all of the forcings under consideration. The same time convention is followed, so F(n) means the forcing “F” in time period “n”.

Delta, or “∆”, means “the change in”. So ∆T(n) is the change in temperature since the previous period, or T(n) minus the previous temperature T(n-1). ∆F(n), correspondingly, is the change in forcing since the previous time period.

Lambda, or “λ”, is the climate sensitivity. And finally tau, or “τ”, is the lag time constant. The time constant establishes the amount of the lag in the response of the system to forcing. And finally, “exp (x)” means the number 2.71828 to the power of x.

So in English, this means that the temperature next year, or T(n+1), is equal to the temperature this year T(n), plus the immediate temperature increase due to the change in forcing λ F(n+1) / τ, plus the lag term ΔT(n) exp( -1 / τ ) from the previous forcing. This lag term is necessary because the effects of the changes in forcing are not instantaneous.

It is the forcing in this equation which is the crux of the matter.
It should relate to forcing of gravity not forcing of the composition of atmosphere.

“But Markus, that means the temperature of Earth will always return to a equilibrium, after lags caused by increases or decreases in pressure, relative by our rotation velocity and our position in the planetary system.”

Nice explanation, markus. I always stress to my students that equations are simply declarations of logical relationships, which can be readily translated into normal language. All too often, a student’s education leaves them with a distorted idea of mathematical statements — that they are somehow “more correct” than language, that they can express things that language cannot, or that an equation implicitly requires a “solution”.

No, an equation is simply a logical declaration, which can be right or wrong. My engineering experience is that a significant proportion of equations in the peer-reviewed literature are false on their face, as the units don’t agree on both sides of the equality sign — apples are compared to oranges. Apparently, dimensional analysis isn’t much taught anymore.

The only slip in your equation is that the argument of the exponentional function isn’t explicitly dimensionless, which it has to be. This can be corrected by considering the “1″ in the numerator to mean “1 time unit”, and the ‘tau’ to be ‘tau time units’. You might say “this is implicitly obvious”, as so it is, now. However, later on in a derivation, the ’1′ may appear to be a constant. If the time units are then changed, the equation becomes false. This is exactly how all those inconsistent (and, hence false) equations slip into the literature.

The problem with this equation, markus, becomes evident if you try to use it. There are only two quantities in it that can be accurately defined:

1) The time period, n, because that is arbitrarily chosen.
2) The base of the natural logarithms, e = 2.71828…

Nothing else can be even approximated very well, and that’s where the debate is. The current post does a nice job of constraining those quantities using emprirical data, and showing that the resulting ranges aren’t consistent with the CAGW theory.

KR, as usual, has been the main advocate of AGW and has floundered badly, dredging up the usual nonsense about Lindzen 2009 and ignoring Lindzen 2011, referring to wind shear, thoroughly discredited as the apogee of model amphigory, and fiddling around energy transfer between CO2 and the atmospheric mass of N2 and O2.

KR does refer, @ 5.1, to the Palmer et al paper, which is part of a stampede from the AGW ranks which now appear to have discovered that the relevant metric to measure Earth’s warming, or not, is the EEB. the Palmer paper is here.

This paper is badly flawed because it says:

We show that decadal trends in SST are only weakly indicative of changes in TOA.

Pielke [15] has pointed out that at least 90% of the variable heat content of Earth resides in the upper ocean.

Given this, variation in surface ocean temperature is a good indicator of the current EEB; that is, a cooling ocean surface is indicative of a -ve EEB [cooling] and vice-versa.

This obseravtion by Knox and Douglass has been confirmed by the most recent paper on the relationship between OHC and TOA EEB by Loeb et al.

Loeb et al say:

We find that the difference between the heat balance at the top of the atmosphere and upper-ocean heat content change is not statistically significant when accounting for observational uncertainties in ocean measurements3

However Loeb et al find a +ve EEB of of 0.50±0.43 W/m−2, that is a range of 0.07 – 0.93 W/m2 [that is, warming]. This finding is significant in respect of the history of the authors of the Loeb paper and also in respect of the IPCC’s and AGW’s climate sensitivity range for a doubling of CO2.

2 of the Loeb paper co-authors, Soden and Allan, were co-authors of this 2002 paper which found a negative TOA radiative balance [negative = cooling]:

In 2009 Loeb et al found a positive imbalance of 6.5 W/m2; about this finding Hansen noted this:

The precision achieved by the most advanced generation of radiation budget satellites is indicated by the planetary energy imbalance measured by the ongoing CERES (Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System) instrument (Loeb et al., 2009), which finds a measured 5-year-mean imbalance of 6.5 W/m2 (Loeb et al., 2009). Because this result is implausible, instrumentation calibration factors were introduced to reduce the imbalance to the imbalance suggested by climate models, 0.85 W/m2 (Loeb et al., 2009).

The imbalance of 0.85W/m2 is exactly what is required to achieve an increase in GAT of 3.2C for a doubling of CO2, which is the exact climate sensitivity predicted by the IPCC for AGW! What a coincidence! What remarkable scientific serendipity!

Now, as mentioned, Loeb et al 2012 have now found an imbalance of 0.50±0.43 W/m−2, that is a range of 0.07 – 0.93 W/m2 ; or a range covering the AGW climate sensitivity figure!

Why do they include the amplification module in their model? Becasue they need amplification to explain the Pleistocene Ice Age. In other words, this temperature data also demonstrates that the currently accepted explanation for the Ice Age is wrong.

David, you say serious skeptics agree that CO2 causes at least some warming. I guess… a consensus! But I ask, and there may be evidence that I don’t know about…, but what evidence do you skeptics have that CO2 causes climate warming?
There is a theoretical basis, but where’s the emprical evidence? My tentative contention is that trace effects of the trace gas CO2 is, for all practical purposes: always, overwhelmed by the variation of natural factors, as the sun, ocean, clouds etc. Wild speculation about feedbacks is another unneeded complication if it all just doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.
This 3 minute video (at end) shows the classic problem with CO2 (also showing algor in a pivotal deception): there is evidence that CO2 will rise as a result of temp changes (with 800 year lag), but there is NO evidence in this video that CO2 causes climate scale temps to rise. So there must be evidence elsewhere, as I am told here. So please present the evidence if you have any, thanks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK_WyvfcJyg

The long standing issue is how much warming does CO2 cause, and scientists always seem to smuggle their assumptions about this into every climate-related paper that comes out. For example I suggest this paper’s abstract is courting alarmism:
“Declining atmospheric CO2 during the late Middle Eocene climate transition”, PNAS Jan 2011.http://ajsonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/311/1/63

First they state the conclusion from their own actual observational study:

“Here we estimate the concentration of atmospheric CO2 during this critical interval using stomatal indices of fossil Metasequoia needles from ten levels in an exceptionally well-preserved core from the Giraffe kimberlite locality in northwestern Canada. Reconstructed CO2 concentrations are mainly between 700 to 1000 ppm, but include a secular decline to 450 ppm towards the top of the investigated section.”

Then they go on to make statements which are NOT the result of their own research but are mostly recycled trendy alarmism:

“Because the CO2 threshold for nucleating continental ice sheets at this time was ~500 to 750 ppm, the CO2 decline is compatible with a rapid (<10^4 yrs) transition from warm, largely ice-free conditions to cooler climates with ice sheets.”

Their facts show CO2 has been much higher in the past, admittedly under ice-free conditions. But their abstract statements are written to presume CO2 has a strong effect on climate, whereas the correlation of course is more easily explained in the other direction: cold oceans absorb more CO2.

No doubt they will be cited widely, with their assumption reported as though it was an observational result.

Warmists sometimes claim the CAGW argument has no dependence at all on the validity of paleoclimate studies. Yet the strong CO2 feedback assumption is often cycled through proxy study papers like this one, perhaps in an earnest attempt to avoid having ancient high CO2 atmospheres provide any reassurance for skeptics. Paleoclimate reconstructions are relevant to testing CAGW, not because we can figure out the CO2 sensitivity figure (because the temperature and temporal errors are too high), but because we have the chance to preview the effect on life of high CO2 and high temperature. It takes the edge off the “C” in CAGW, even if it says nothing about the AGW.

As to whether high CO2 is bad, well, that does seem to depend on interpretation of the evidence:

These fossils provide direct evidence that high-latitude deciduous forests thrived in the geological past under CO2 concentrations that will likely be reached within the 21st century (500-1000 ppm).

The business plan of the warmists is now clear: They have tackled their inability to live long enough to profit from the timber industry of 2200AD by instead insisting we pay them today compensation for the boosted timber industry profits that they are going prevent us creating! It’s genius!

Actually, if the IPCC are to be believed, the feedbacks are responsible for amplifying CO2’s expected warming by a factor of 9. Not 3, but 9! The IPCC’s logarithmic equation (Ln(C1/C0)X5.35) tells us that the predicted radiative forcing (RF) from CO2 from its current level of 390ppmv to 560ppmv is about 1.9W/sq.m (which relates to a temperature increase of 0.35C at the surface on a baseline temperature of 288C). How the feedbacks could amplify CO2’s warming of 0.35C to 3C (an amplification factor of 9) remains a mystery to my mind. A total RF of 16.5W/sq.m is required to produce a temperature increase of 3C at the surface. If CO2 can only produce a maximum of 1.9W/sq.m then that means the feedbacks must be responsible for 14.6W/sq.m. In Dessler’s paper ‘A Determination of Cloud Feedback’ Dessler gives a maximum theoretical RF from positive feedback from clouds of 1.28W/sq.m. But that still leaves 13.32W.sq.m. Is water vapour responsible for producing that extra 13.32W.sq.m of RF? It must be. According to the IPCC, CH4 is a bit-player too and has only contributed about 0.45W/sq.m. It rests on the assumption that WV is strongly, hugely positive. The IPCC’s models assume that WV remains roughly constant (i.e. that it won’t condense quickly into clouds) as it should do. Unfortunately for the IPCC WV has an incorrigible habit of forming clouds, which increases albedo and acts as a powerful negative feedback by reflecting incoming solar radiation back out into space. Every child knows this. Why don’t the IPCC?

(Both satellite data sets show no long term warming of the lower troposphere.LINK) CTS

But current radiosondes, (radiosondes being the basis for many of these arguments against warming)do show warming.

—

And either way, this doesn’t matter! A tropospheric hot spot (THS) is a red herring in terms of discussing climate sensitivity – which is why I pointed out the irrelevance of the papers Dr. Evans pointed to when discussing sensitivity.

In addition, THS is a fingerprint of _any_ warming based upon the moist adiabatic lapse rate, not of greenhouse gas warming. If, indeed, there is no THS, then we apparently don’t understand something about that lapse rate or lower atmospheric circulation.

A cooling stratosphere, on the other hand, is a fingerprint of increasing greenhouse effect – see Randel et al 2009:

Temperature changes in the lower stratosphere show cooling of
~0.5 K/decade over much of the globe for 1979–2007…Trends in the middle and upper stratosphere … show mean cooling of 0.5–1.5 K/decade during 1979–2005, with the greatest cooling in the upper stratosphere near 40–50 km

If the sun was causing warming over the last 30 years, the entire atmosphere would be warming. But greenhouse gas increases reduce energy flow to space, leaving the stratosphere to cool as less energy is reaching it from the surface. That’s a fingerprint.

In all Earth average temperature calculations I fail to find a proper description to how the energy budget of the oceans is represented.
The oceans are net energy absorber at the equator. This accumulation of energy is due to the high incoming solar radiation during day and much lower outgoing radiation in the night. These two do not balance. This is no way similar to the ground behaviour as water’s absorption spectrum is very different to solid ground:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/72/Water_absorption_spectrum.png
allowing for the visible light to penetrate deeply into the oceans (to 200 m), near infrared will warm only the first meter and LWIR from clouds will be stopped at the surface. So downwards infrared from greenhouse does not warm the oceans, it is only the sun which does it.
Moreover the oceans do not warm like a rock at the surface, not radiating intensively like sand or rock do when reaching 60-70°C during intense sunny days. The oceans at equator warm and reach their energy balance through the slow migration of waters to other latitudes its place being taken by cooler water coming from the depth or from higher latitudes and through enthalpy.
Only the very surface gets in radiation balance with the surrounding areas whereas the deeper one accumulate heat.
The mass of water that goes slowly to higher latitudes passes by at the point where there is no more energy surplus – when the solar radiation is as low as the night radiation + oceans day radiation. Again nothing to count with greenhouse which only warms the atmosphere but not the oceans. It does not influence the outgoing radiation from the ocean as “back-radiation” is blocked at the very first strata of water and may eventually cause more evaporation but nothing more.
When the mass of water reaches north and south enough to cool it will slowly lose some energy and so cool – but due to its high capacity it takes long until water cools as much as to get frozen. Here again it has to pass the big threshold to freeze the waters which releases much warming in the rest of the water and environment.
Once frozen at the surface, the water from below does not radiate any more – zero radiation to the atmosphere. Ice is a very bad heat conductor so the oceans lose here much less warm as any material would lose at 0°C.
This whole process is very much dependent on the solar insulation and ocean currents. I have not seen a rational explanation to link it to greenhouse or other explanation, so to my understanding the oceans temperature is very much self regulating based on different criteria.
The outgoing radiation budget with averaging over the whole oceans area is not valid – as we see above for the ice covered regions.
As 99% of the energy stored on the earth from sun’s insulation is in the oceans I see the oceans as regulating the earth temperature, the land and the atmosphere are only the tail of the dog. Where is more “energy trapped” as in the oceans? Which gas can trump the oceans in “trapping energy”?
Now maybe I see this with an “ocean bias”, would be glad to see comments and/or corrections, but in my eyes any atmosphere average temperature enhancing discussion should start only after the ocean energy budget is clarified.
Of course albedo plays a huge role, but are not clouds rather a negative feedback which reduces the warm that the oceans would otherwise trap?

Clouds also fall as rain – increasing temperature. They bring back energy to the ground otherwise lost to space.

EPIC FAIL.

Normally I would go to great lengths to explain the error of your ways, Ross James, but in this case you are so far out of the ball-park it hardly seems worth the effort.

Suffice to say that even the much-censored in favour of CAGW and rightly maligned by intelligent people, Wikipedia, gives us a sufficiently adequate explanation of the adiabatic transfer of heat-energy (the rain goes down, the energy is radiated out), to make your above statement absolute BS.

Please do us all a favour and refrain from making quasi-non-scientific semi-religious statements about things you obviously have no grasp of, until you at least can regurgitate the “science” even as your side agrees to it.

The “energy” falls back to earth as rain – what next – Thor’s Hammer makes up any shortfall.

Good grief.

To think people actually waste intellectual energy debating with you you.

“The troposphere is the lowest layer of Earth’s atmosphere and site of all weather on Earth. The troposphere is bonded on the top by a layer of air called the tropopause, which separates the troposphere from the stratosphere, and on bottom by the surface of the Earth. The troposphere is wider at the equator (10mi) than at the poles (5mi)”

“”Temperature changes in the lower stratosphere show cooling of
~0.5 K/decade over much of the globe for 1979–2007…Trends in the middle and upper stratosphere … show mean cooling of 0.5–1.5 K/decade during 1979–2005, with the greatest cooling in the upper stratosphere near 40–50 km”"

The stratosphere is no more than a separation device of pressured gas, warmed by the enhancement of molecules at the earth surface.

How could you possibly say that Markus when you know the correct answer is;

The tropopause is the separation device and the stratosphere is the fridge cabinet of outgoing heat, cooling incoming rays, as they warm to the pressure of the atmosphere, after preceding through the thermostat of the mesopause, and then onto the thermostat of the tropopause, before again heating closer as pressure increases at the Earths surface, until thermodynamics of the enhanced potential energy completes the system back to the separation device of the troposphere.

A complete system of heat in and heat out that does not affect the first law of energy conservation.

The article states that skeptics accept the value of 1.1 C of the no-feedback climate sensitivity, for a doubling of CO2. This is wrong. Some of us believe the number is indistinguishable from 0 C. The estimation is based on the assumption that the “structure of the atmosphere does not change”. This is code word for two things. First, that the estimations can be done looking only at the radiative term. This aassumption has never been validated. Second that the lapse rate does not change. If the lapse rate changes as a result of adding CO2 to the atmosphere, then the no-feed back climate sensitivity cannot be estimated at all. Lapse rate is controlled by convection and the latent heat of water, and if a change in the radiaitve balance in the atmosphere interacts with these two modes of heat transfer, then the estimations cannot be done at all.

One really big problem that should not go unmentioned is that Venus is NOT a greenhouse and not subject to any greenhouse effect. Greenhouses allow solar radiation to reach the floor, which then heats up and heats the air by conduction; the glass roof and walls prevents convection and the building heats up.

Venus has a permanent cloud deck which prevents solar radiation from reaching the surface. The temperature of the atmosphere is NOT due to composition, but due to the 90 atmospheres of pressure. The fact that it is mostly CO2 is irrelevant.

I totally agree, but we should never stop getting the science correct in order to prevent another mess like AGW. Sit back and enjoy, but keep your eyes and ears open. They’re working on the next big crisis – species diversity – which is much like nailing jello to a tree.

The overwhelming mistake scientists on both sides have made is that CO2 does not trap heat. It can, at a low rate, convert IR energy to heat, BUT is also can convert heat to IR. It is NOT a one-way process. Other gases can just as well transfer heat to CO2 and it can emit IR.

This, during the day, CO2 and water vapor can actively convert IR to heat and just as easily heat to IR. These compounds are leaks, not traps. BUT, at night, they serve to actively leak energy by converting heat to IR and it’s one-way, as there is no solar input. This is equivalent to drilling many small holes in your greenhouse roof. During the day, you may not notice their presence as the Sun heats the building, but at night it will be noticeable. [Global climate models pretty much do not include night-time and assume solar input 24/7, which is why they do not notice this nocturnal effect.]

The definition for “greenhouse gas” (at Wikipedia) is false. It was designed to guide the reader to CO2 and water. However, as they do not trap heat, what are greenhouse gases?

Real greenhouse gases are nitrogen and oxygen, which do not have any IR emission/absorption bands. When heated by conduction by the surface, these gases have no way to lose heat except by convection and adiabatic expansion.

(They can “lose” it by IR radiation too) CTS

Very simply, CO2 and water vapor are energy leaks that keep the atmosphere cooler than otherwise and the water cycle, with water vapor condensing at altitude and releasing its Latent Heat of Condensation, acts as a huge heat engine that would ramp up it’s activity with any warming, serving to bring the temperatures back down. Let’s not mention the cool rain that falls to Earth and starts sucking up heat all over again. Estimates are that convection/water vapor accounts for 85% of atmospheric heat transfer—the heat that Trenberth cannot find because his warmest glasses cannot see convection.

“Real greenhouse gases are nitrogen and oxygen, which do not have any IR emission/absorption bands. When heated by conduction by the surface, these gases have no way to lose heat except by convection and adiabatic expansion.” (They can “lose” it by IR radiation too) CTS

Regardless of the comment by CTS you get 10 points from me for simply mentioning “convection and adiabatic expansion” and another 10 for the last para.

Two points about the box diagrams at the start. First CO2 does not form a layer in the atmosphere, nor does it trap heat – don’t forget that it emits IR just as easily and just as frequently as it absorbs it. Second, the outputs are not ‘observed’ temperatures, but rather predicted, or projected if you prefer, temperatures. My next quible is about the sentence ‘The serious skeptical scientists have always agreed with the government climate scientists about the direct effect of CO2.’ I think that would be improved by deleting the definite article at the start of it, and perhaps get rid of the ‘always’, or at the risk of becoming duller, include reference to serious scientists who suggest the CO2 could have a cooling effect (enhancing the daily cooling task of transfering tropical heat polewards), or no appreciable effect at all. This aspect of the ‘debate’ does not appear to be settled. But overall, I like the post and hope that it will have a good impact on the ‘undecided’, those who are perhaps beginning to have doubts about all the alarmism, perhaps because of those mothballed desalination plants being soaked in the rains, perhaps because the fatuity of the carbon tax is sinking in, or because Antarctica seems not to have noticed the CAGW scam and just keeps on getting cooler and icier, or because the snows of Kilimanjaro have not gone, nor have they in the UK. Many more reasons are out there for citizens to raise an eyebrow at the irresponsible words of the alarmists. I hope the Evans piece can be brought to their attention in case they still hold a trace of respect for those climate models.

KR,
It would help if you’d provide something other than hand waiving on the issue of the missing hotspot. You referenced to Santer bloviating, but failed to mention Santer 08 stopped their “study” in 1999. How convenient. It has been thoroughly debunked for the deception that it is.

The data does not support a tropical tropospheric hotspot as predicted by climate models, period, end of story.

“The word troposphere means ‘turning sphere’, which symbolizes the fact that, in this region, convective processes dominate over radiative processes. The troposphere is indeed marked by strong convective over-turnings, whereby large parcels of warm air travel upwards to the tropopause, carrying water vapor and forming clouds as they cool down (the stratosphere, on the other hand is a very stable a stratified environment where heat transfer is mainly radiative).”

As a lay person I can’t understand how one can look for a hot spot in the troposphere at heights where the temperature is around -55 to -65 degrees Celcius.

Well, Government Scientists use data too. So this isn’t data vs scientists – it’s their use and interpretation of data vs yours.

Dr David Evans huh? Every Dr I know, as a matter of principle, only use their academic credentials when discussing their particular field. Otherwise you get guys with very nice phds in electronics telling you about all ocean heat content and getting it wrong. Oh wait.

But that’s an ad-hom (though it is a good rule of thumb for the budding skeptic) I can do better.

1. Lost in Space
[snip - Jason, feel free to make those accusations again, but next time , include some substantiation. David didn't do either of the things you suggest, but you are free to point out things you think are errors - politely - with some evidence. We look forward to genuine efforts to help us improve the graphs. -- Jo]

[David includes all the data available from the best form of measuring ocean heat content there is - ARGO . You respond with an old 2005 paper, and tell us to search for missing heat content (lost between 2003 and 2010) and somehow expect us to find that heat in records before 2003. It's nonsense on stilts. Jo]

The wiggly lines on graphs are supposed to be plots of data (remember that stuff you mentioned in the title) – you can’t just move them around.[snip - he didn't, you need to substantiate these accusations. Repeating a falsehood does not make it true. - Jo]

3. Hotspot Found
It’s interesting John Brooks reminisced about the UAH temp record needing to be fixed. Because the radiosonde troposphere data was broke too. Change of design in the sensor. Could happen to anyone.http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008JCLI2320.1
[Cheers, Thanks for referring to Sherwood 2008. It's an excellent paper -- for skeptics. That was the paper when they distorted the scale of the colours in fig 6. in order to "find" the hot spot. Look at fig 3, there is no hot spot between 100-300hpa. It shows how barrel bottom utterly desperate, unscrupulous, and unscientific they are. Thank you! -- Jo]

So. Climate Scientists or guy with phd in electronics who [snip unsubstantiated allegation]. Given that the Climate Scientists are sometimes funded by the public – no contest!
[Yawn. Typical warmist "reasoning" - an ad hom attack, followed by pouring doubt the data, referring to papers he hasn't read, but he trusts the models without question. Jo]

Do you know that the following people have ZERO science degree in Meteorology or Climatology?

Dr. Hansen (He was trained in physics and astronomy in the space science program of James Van Allen at the University of Iowa. He obtained a B.A. in Physics and Mathematics with highest distinction in 1963, an M.S. in Astronomy in 1965 and a Ph.D. in Physics, in 1967, all three degrees from the University of Iowa)

Dr. Mann (He obtained an A.B. in applied mathematics and physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1989, graduating from there with honors. He then studied at Yale University, obtaining an MS in physics in 1991, an MPhil in physics the same year, an MPhil in geology and geophysics in 1993, and a PhD in geology and geophysics in 1998)

Dr. Gavin (He was educated at The Corsham School, earned a BA (Hons) in mathematics at Jesus College, Oxford, and a PhD in applied mathematics at University College London)

Dr. P.J. Jones (Jones holds a BA in Environmental Sciences from the University of Lancaster, and an MSc and PhD from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne)

They routinely go outside of their chosen field of study.To push the log debunked AGW conjecture.Yet have the gall(Like you)to disparage people who DOES have a degree in Climatology or Meteorology.Who do not agree with the main thrust of the conjecture.

Dr. Michaels (Michaels has an A.B. and S.M. in biological sciences and plant ecology from the University of Chicago, and in 1979 obtained his Ph.D. in ecological climatology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison)

Here is a link to many more.People who actually have a degree that strongly relates to the topic of the Climate.Who are not supporters of the long debunked AGW conjecture:

Now I understand that educational credentials does not prove either competency or credibility of the person holding such a degree.But YOU warmists love to be hypocritical about it.I made this post for the purpose of showing why your comment below is typical warmist bile.

The below is a beautiful example,

Dr David Evans huh? Every Dr I know, as a matter of principle, only use their academic credentials when discussing their particular field. Otherwise you get guys with very nice phds in electronics telling you about all ocean heat content and getting it wrong. Oh wait.

But that’s an ad-hom (though it is a good rule of thumb for the budding skeptic) I can do better.

If someone claims to predict the stockmarket, the horse races, the weather, the climate, or anything else I don’t perfectly understand, using arguments or technology I may not understand at all, then there is one time honoured way of judging them. Get them to make some predictions. Not hind-casts. Predictions. Wait a while and then judge their predictions.

An additional note, one which I made on the previous Dr. Evans thread, is that the Hansen graphs he is showing display the Hansen projections for surface temperature values (as in HadCRUT, GISTEMP, GHCN, etc) – against (as he did before) satellite estimates of surface temperature, which are known to show rather lower values. And, quite notably, were not what Hansen was making projections for.

Got to admit, I was a bit puzzled by KR’s assertion, after reiterating his claim that anthropogenic CO2 remains in the atmosphere for thousands of years (in post #45.1.1.1.9):

The rest of your post [45.1.1.1.8] consists of Appeal to Complexity fallacies, and a repeat of the “single cause” focus on CO2 as opposed to total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.

when what I had said was:

Given that the isotopic estimates of anthropogenic fraction are in stark opposition to the many empirical studies (as opposed to theoretical models) of the carbon cycle, I would not put very much credence in the isotopic conclusions.

I finally got it — when one brings up actual data that contradicts KR’s favorite models (in this case, long lifetime CO2 models), then one is committing the Appeal to Complexity fallacy.

I guess (in KR’s mind), if I only understood these theoretical models as well as he, I would realize that they can still be “true” (“truthy”?) even if they are contradicted by every empirical study (36 of them) done in the real world.

There has been a pattern with a number of contributors so that when it looks as though the truth might be exposed all they have to do is start picking at trivia in various papers and bog the discussion down.

The increased Complexity is a sure way to confuse those who are uncertain about the science.

BobC – Once again, you are conflating mean residence time for individual molecules with concentration change time in the presence of exchanges in both directions between atmosphere and ocean, and the separate processes of much longer time frame that remove carbon from the atmosphere and ocean.

Your “many empirical studies” are all about mean residence time. In terms of greenhouse effects we’re interested in concentration change time – a completely separate time frame, a red herring.

—

I would appreciate you not creating strawman arguments, or misrepresenting what I say. You argue that said “that anthropogenic CO2 remains in the atmosphere for thousands of years”, when what I actually said was “The reduction in CO2 concentration from an addition to the atmosphere comprises multiple exponential decays” – concentration changes, not individual molecules.

—

My note about your Argument from Complexity referred to:

Precision isotopic analysis of anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 fraction is impossible in this environment of uncertainty and rapidly changing estimates

…which is just silly.

——

All of which is simply side-tracks from the article and thread. Dr. Evans has presented misleading (and in my opinion deceptive) graphics, claimed low sensitivity while presenting papers and arguments about the THS (which isn’t a greenhouse gas signature anyway, but a signature of heating from _any_ cause), and in this recycled article has not made a good argument for his point of view.

BobC – Once again, you are conflating mean residence time for individual molecules with concentration change time in the presence of exchanges in both directions between atmosphere and ocean, and the separate processes of much longer time frame that remove carbon from the atmosphere and ocean.

Your “many empirical studies” are all about mean residence time. In terms of greenhouse effects we’re interested in concentration change time – a completely separate time frame, a red herring.

And you, KR, are demonstrating your inexplictable attraction to hypothetical models (of long lifetime atmospheric CO2) that are unsupported (indeed, falsified) by all available empirical data.

There is, indeed, empirical evidence that the residence time constant (of atmospheric CO2) is quite short, 5-12 years.

There is, also, empirical evidence that what you call the “concentration change time” is also quite short, on the order of 8 – 12 years. The C14 bomb spike measurements, for example, are essentially a classical tracer measurement of that quantity (actually, the “relaxation time” of the system; also called the “Impulse Response Function) — I recall that you knew nothing about tracer measurements, and weren’t willing to educate yourself.

Since, in a linear or quasi-linear system, these two quantities would be very closely related, it would need some actual data showing that the concentrations of atmospheric CO2 follows some other rules. Such data is entirely lacking.

There is exactly NO emprical evidence, whatsoever for the ad hoc models that claim CO2 “concentration change times” of hundreds to thousands of years. They amount to nothing more than theoretical wishful thinking. In addition, none of these data-free models can reproduce the experimental data — either the bomb spike data, or the other residence time experiments. There is no reason to take any of them seriously as anything more than political ploys.

Your argument, on the other hand, seems to be:

Since I don’t (you claim) understand the difference between residence time and relaxation time therefore these flaky models which contradict (and can’t reproduce) ANY of the empirical data must be right.

You need remedial education in logic. (And, it wouldn’t hurt if you tried to understand a little about why the bomb spike measures the IRF of the atmospheric-CO2 system and how that relates to the “concentration change time”.)

——————————————————————————-
Then, there’s this:

My note about your Argument from Complexity referred to:

“Precision isotopic analysis of anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 fraction is impossible in this environment of uncertainty and rapidly changing estimates”

…which is just silly.

So, if you can’t tell how much of the excess C12 in the atmosphere is from anthropogenic sources, and how much is from volcanos, you should just assume it’s all from human activity. Gee, that’s only logical — doing anything other than assuming the answer you want would be “silly”. Perhaps you can tell us what’s “silly” about this article explaining why you shouldn’t do that.

In my previous comment, to clarify, the red herring BobC presented was to throw a swarm of papers on mean molecular residence time up as an attempt to argue about concentration change time.

Again, you demonstrate your ignorance. The bomb spike measurements (still ongoing) are a direct measurement of the relaxation time of the atmospheric-CO2 system: That is, they directly measure how long it takes an injection of excess CO2 into the atmosphere to be removed — the precise datum you are referring to as “concentration change time”.

The data also shows other interesting facts, such as the mixing time between hemispheres is 2-4 years. The fact that CO2 concentrations in the Southern Hemisphere (where little anthropogenic CO2 is produced) do not lag concentrations in the Northern Hemisphere (where most anthropogenic CO2 is produced) by this amount is a direct indication that human sources are not responsible for most of the CO2 concentration increase.

Which (sorry to be harsh, but we’ve gone over this in detail before on other threads) is a completely invalid argument on his part.

Too bad you weren’t able to produce a valid argument to that effect. I invite interested readers to look at KR’s attempts to show this on this thread.

Of course, we’re still waiting for you to produce ANY empirical data showing that the hypothetical “long tail” (thousands of years) of atmospheric CO2 relaxation is real. Such data won’t be forthcoming, as it would directly contradict decades of C14 measurements (linked above).

CTS – (The difference between you and BobC is that he provides empirical evidence and you never did) CTS

That would be incorrect – as BobC has pointed out, we discussed this at some length on this thread. I had wanted to save everyone the rehashing of that topic…

If, however, we wish a repeat of this discussion, I would point to the IPCC summary on Carbon Cycle Feedbacks, to Sabine et al 2004 noting that “The current fraction of total anthropogenic CO2 emissions stored in the ocean appears to be about one-third of the long-term potential” (basic chemistry), while Archer 2009 reviews the literature on the long term tail of CO2 inputs to the atmosphere: “The models agree that 20– 35% of theCO2 remains in the atmosphere after equilibration with the ocean (2–20 centuries). Neutralization byCaCO3 draws the airborne fraction down further on timescales of 3 to 7 kyr.”

—

In terms of empirical evidence[since everyone here appears to hate models, even when based upon the straightforward chemistry of weathering and reaction rates], Archer 2009 notes “This is consistent with sedimentary records from the deep past, in particular a climate event known as the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum, which consisted of a relatively sharp increase in atmospheric CO2 and ocean temperature, followed by a recovery, which took perhaps 150,000 years (Kennett & Stott 1991, Pagani et al. 2006)” (emphasis added)

—

CTS – A minor side note: It’s one thing to enforce moderation policies, another to offer ones opinion while acting as a moderator; that leads to the impression that particular opinions are not allowed here. I don’t feel that I’ve violated moderation here (and if I have, please tell me) – if you offer an opinion on the subject, perhaps you could participate as a commenter instead?

(I was making a short statement about presenting evidence nothing more.You have since answered it) CTS

If, however, we wish a repeat of this [CO2 "long tail" concentration model] discussion, I would point to the IPCC summary on Carbon Cycle Feedbacks, to Sabine et al 2004 noting that “The current fraction of total anthropogenic CO2 emissions stored in the ocean appears to be about one-third of the long-term potential” (basic chemistry), while Archer 2009 reviews the literature on the long term tail of CO2 inputs to the atmosphere: “The models agree that 20– 35% of theCO2 remains in the atmosphere after equilibration with the ocean (2–20 centuries). Neutralization byCaCO3 draws the airborne fraction down further on timescales of 3 to 7 kyr.”

The logical error of referencing models to support other models should be evident. This is what 99% of the literature on CO2 cycles does. It is why the field is a hermetically sealed echo chamber isolated from any real world data.

[since everyone here appears to hate models, even when based upon the straightforward chemistry of weathering and reaction rates]

Nobody here “hates models” KR, we just realize that models need to be verified by actual observational data — an obvious necessity (if you care about being right) that apparently escapes you.

In terms of empirical evidence…, Archer 2009 notes “This is consistent with sedimentary records from the deep past, in particular a climate event known as the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum, which consisted of a relatively sharp increase in atmospheric CO2 and ocean temperature, followed by a recovery, which took perhaps 150,000 years (Kennett & Stott 1991, Pagani et al. 2006)” (emphasis added)[by KR]

Well, some evidence is better than none — however just being consistent with current CO2 cycle models is not very strong. The (55 Mya) PETM is also consistent with the bomb spike data and measured CO2 atmospheric lifetimes, since those are actual measurements. So the PETM doesn’t represent a crucial “experiment” to decide between the current data and the current theories.

(Why anyone would elevate theories over data is a psychological question I am unequiped to answer.)

But your truncated description of the PETM leaves the impression that it is known that the CO2 took 150,000 years to decay from the atmosphere after the source ended. That is completely unknown — I quote from the Wikipedia article:

Both models [of PETM temperature and CO2 excursion timing] have their failings, but agree on a few points. Importantly, they both detect two steps in the drop of δ13C, each lasting about 1,000 years, and separated by about 20,000 years. The models diverge most in their estimate of the recovery time, which ranges from 150,000[13] to 30,000[14] years. There is other evidence to suggest that warming predated the δ13C excursion by some 3,000 years.[15]

None of the models you’ve been promoting can explain how CO2 concentrations — without additional ongoing sources — can drop for 1000 years, then hold steady for 20,000 years before dropping again. This is clear evidence that there were ongoing CO2 sources during the PETM, of unknown magnitude — which destroys any chance that the data can be used to verify today’s models.

In addition, note that there is evidence that the sudden warming may have started as much as 3000 years before the CO2 spike — not exactly a confirmation of it’s currently exalted status as the driver of climate.

Has anyone on this thread addressed the fact that CO2 is heavier than than air with a specific gravity of 1.52… so it sinks to the ground… doesn’t rise into the atmosphere (so how could it create a greenhouse effect?), doesn’t absorb any more heat than other gases nor does it hold the heat any longer than other gases? As this can easily be shown in a simple science class experiment (http://spinonthat.com/CO2.html), why all the attention given to CO2 as a “greenhouse”gas? Should be obvious to all that the affect of CO2 on temperature is fleeting and inconsequential.

All this arguing about various minutia is really nothing more than an exercise in debating. The bottom line is that the minuet amount of CO2 in our atmosphere (we live in one of only two periods in the last 600 million years with both Temperature and CO2 levels this low at the same time) isn’t worth bothering with (unless you are looking for a way to gain control over all our lives).

I think that in sunlight there might be enough energy to allow full mixing but understand that CO2 expressed from volcanic sources may be able to pool at night and has possibly even led to suffocation of people sleeping in low areas.

Vostock ice core samples… recent work has tended to show that during deglaciations CO2 increases lags temperature increases by 600 +/- 400 years.[2] Beryllium-10 concentrations are linked to cosmic ray intensity which can be a proxy for solar strength.

CAGW “theory” claims CO2 up = temperature up.
Observed reality shows CO2 up = temperature up – and down – and up – and down . . .

Minor side note – I’ve never said “catastrophic” anthropogenic greenhouse warming – that’s a strawman argument. I expect climate changes will be expensive, probably painful, but I certainly don’t expect the world to burst into flames. Don’t put words in my mouth.

Temps are about 0.6-0.8C above what they would be without anthropogenic greenhouse gases, and will continue to rise with our emissions. If, however, you insist that temperature increases in a climate system with volcanoes, solar cycles, and the ENSO/SOI would be monotonic with CO2 increases, you don’t understand the issue at all. CO2, while the largest forcing (changing influence) right now, is not the only forcing on climate – there will always be variability up and down around the long term trends.

—

Gene Horner – That’s a reasonable question to ask. In the past, notably in the glacial/interglacial cycle, CO2 has acted as a feedback with a ~500-800 year lag. That’s as a feedback to forcing changes, namely (primarily) insolation due to the Milankovitch cycle, where warming oceans held less CO2.

Now, however, the forcing, the change in energy flows, is from our CO2 emissions, not insolation changes. Later on, perhaps ~500-800 years from now, we will see additional CO2 coming out of the oceans as they warm up, as feedback. Our CO2 emissions are acting as insolation changes have in the past – and on the same order of magnitude. Except we’re not coming out of an ice age – we’re starting from an interglacial, and are going to get warmer.

Temps are about 0.6-0.8C above what they would be without anthropogenic greenhouse gases, and will continue to rise with our emissions.

FAIL

Global atmospheric temperatures are claimed to about 0.6 to 0.8 C above where they were 100 years ago. There is not one shred of actual evidence that “anthropogenic greenhouse gases” have anything to do with it.

There is even less “evidence” to support the notion that they “will continue to rise with our emissions”. Especially given the inconvenient fact that said emissions continue to rise, and temperatures are falling.

If, however, you insist that temperature increases in a climate system with volcanoes, solar cycles, and the ENSO/SOI would be monotonic with CO2 increases, you don’t understand the issue at all.

FAIL

It was not me who claimed that “global warming as a result of increasing CO2 would overwhelm all natural forcings by the year 2000”.

THAT claim belongs fairly and squarely with you cultists, and you beat the rest us with it mercilessly for nearly two decades, right up until a couple of years ago when it became apparent it just wasn’t happening.

CO2, while the largest forcing (changing influence) right now . . .

EPIC FAIL

Not even the grand gurus of your own cult claim this. In fact, all the CAGW bullshit literature accepts that the influence of CO2 alone is very minor. THAT is why they had to invent all the fudge factors positive feedbacks which are what this article actually refutes.

Or did you lose the plot somewhere along the way?

. . . . is not the only forcing on climate – there will always be variability up and down around the long term trends.

FAIL

Since there has always been “natural variability” in the long term trends, and since the CURRENT variations are neither bigger nor smaller, nor quicker nor slower, nor more nor less, than countless NATURAL variations in the past, there’s absolutely no need to “invent” CAGW to explain something that isn’t happening – outside of natural variation.

My understanding is that two separate NASA studies (among others) confirm that the oceans have been cooling since 2003. It would seem that (if this is indeed the case) we will not see much additional stored CO2 added to the lower levels of the atmosphere. Not a problem anyway, as CO2 is too heavy to affect the upper atmosphere, where any “greenhouse” effect would take place.

I have to question with your statement that we are “starting from an interglacial, and are going to get warmer.” Why do you disagree with those climate scientist,that believe that we are coming out of an ice age? There are a number of scientists holding the belief the earth is entering a new glaciation. You must really disagree with that theory.

Even the IPCC admits, there is not enough known about how the atmosphere to make any confident predictions… most of their computer scenarios have not turned out well. No satellite or weather balloon reading has agreed with the IPCC computer predictions that I know of. Perhaps in a decade or two the climate models will be more reliable. The IPCC also has stated their statements are merely reactions to the “what if” computer scenarios.

As the earth has experienced wide swings in climate throughout its existence, what makes a warming fluctuation of less than one degree Fahrenheit in 300 years a “crisis” as the UN and environmentalists claim? What is their real agenda? It’s not science to make the claim “the science is settled”.

CO2 levels of less than 400 ppm are miniscule compared with the 7,000 ppm plus the earth has endured (without turning into Venus I might add).

As the worlds population continues to grow (baring another plague or world war), an increased level of CO2 would be quite beneficial for crop growth (many (most?) greenhouse business’s double or triple the amount of CO2 in their contained atmospheres to increase plant growth). Are some people wrongly worried about what could be a beneficial environmental change?

Second; “CO2 is NOT a pollutant, and is exhaled at high concentrations by each of us.” Higher population… more hot air!

The article also noted that In September, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever, a supporter of President Obama in the last election, publicly resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) with a letter that begins: “I did not renew [my membership] because I cannot live with the [APS policy] statement: ‘The evidence is incontrovertible:

Those of you on this thread who are so sure the politicians and environmentalists are telling you the truth might want to reconsider why you have blindly accepted… what I consider to be a scam… without considering the evidence. ALL the evidence. You might also consider the signers of the “Oregon Petition Project”… over 30,000 U.S. scientists that have taken issue with AGW.

The Scientists are:

Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris; J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting; Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University; Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society; Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences; William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton; Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.; William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT; James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University; Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences; Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne; Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator; Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service; Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva.

All it would take to disprove Prof. Johnson’s hypothesis is a simple experiment. You just have to show that backradiation can warm something like a metal plate that is already warmer than the cold atmosphere. It appears that backradiation cannot melt frost which is in shade all day long, but who knows, maybe it can warm the oceans (LOL.)

But seriously, I am seeking ten companies to sponsor a reward of $50,000 for the first person or organisation who can do so.

For details watch for my book in about May or June this year and advertisements in the press and other media.

If any company wishes to offer $5,000 please contact me. The 10 companies doing so will get plenty of free publicity I believe.

Gene Horner – By my count, there are about 9-10 misapprehensions and, quite frankly, blog myths in your last post. If that’s the information you have received, I understand why you might have those impressions (i.e., I’m not blaming you) – but they are incorrect.

memoryvault – In your last post, I count about 8. Although the accusatory nature of the post makes it more of a Gish Gallop… and you have, as I’ve seen, been given enough information already.

—

Either way, I could spend weeks explaining each and every point, what the evidence is, providing you with enough information to make informed decisions about what is really the case. I don’t have the time – particularly as for every misapprehension I discussed I would probably hear another 8-10 from various posters.

So: I would suggest looking these items up - take those last couple of posts, go paragraph by paragraph, look the arguments up, and see what the actual evidence and science on those topics say. Then make your own decisions… I cannot spoon-feed folks.

…I could spend weeks explaining each and every point, what the evidence is, providing you with enough information to make informed decisions about what is really the case. I don’t have the time – particularly as for every misapprehension I discussed I would probably hear another 8-10 from various posters.

KR, you don’t supply evidence, you supply your opinions. You could do this until Hell freezes over without changing anyone’s mind here.

I have spent weeks trying to get you to provide any evidence whatsoever for your opinions. You don’t seem to understand the concept of crucial evidence (see also here), but instead engage in ad hoc justifications for your pre-existing beliefs.

KR, Did you post the way you did so I would have to ask… “what misapprehensions?” Are you afraid that those other posters would supply data that show the misapprehensions are yours? Are the 16 scientists incorrect… I would have serious doubt about that premise!

Talk is cheap KR, and accusations are easily made. I’m not sure if you are having a good time playing devils advocate here, or if you really think your arguments are more valid than the scientists you seem to disagree with.

I’m not sure if you are having a good time playing devils advocate here…

Actually, I am not. I’m rather appalled by what people will take as evidence from various blogs, and do not enjoy being ranted at (cue memoryvault and others) – but at the same time scientific honesty and personal ethics encourage me to at least present the evidence I know of in the face of rather horrible misapprehensions. But it’s a rather Sisyphean task…

—

Enough. I’ve stated my disagreements with Dr. Evans post, with his graphic distortions, and mis-comparison of Hansen’s predictions with both the wrong emissions scenario and with a different (and lower) temperature record than he was discussing. Most of the rest of this discussion is off topic.

My guess is that KR is used to having his opinions taken as fact, and doesn’t quite know how to justify them with data (probably hasn’t really thought that one out). That’s why he has been putting on the superior attitude in his last few posts — it’s all he has left.

I’ve worked with a number of scientists like that — even had some tell me what we were already doing was impossible. Eventually, they learned that facts trump theory (or else they quit working for an engineering company and went back to academia.)

(I’m reminded of the AGW scientists who used to accept public debate challenges, but were totally unprepared for anyone to question their beliefs and demand evidence.)

He says he’s appalled by what we consider evidence, but I suspect he really is appalled that we won’t just take his opinion as gospel.

He has left in a huff, because we demanded empirical justification for his beliefs, and he couldn’t provide it. Maybe next time he will spend a few hours reading some of the background information on Joanne’s blog and will be more prepared.

BobC – No, it’s really getting tired of folks (like you) who have been pointed at their errors (conflating mean molecular residence time with concentration change time) over and over, but hold on to their unsupportable opinion.

Yes, CO2 exchanges with the oceans and the biosphere. No, it’s not the singlar molecular time of residence in the atmosphere, as there is CO2 coming back as well.

Now – once the oceans/biosphere/atmosphere equilibrate, what processes remove CO2 from those climate compartments, and at what rates? That’s the question you have never answered, and have never acknowledged. And it’s really tiresome to hear you just repeat yourself over and over without paying attention to those longer term processes. You might as well stuff your fingers in your ears and sing “La la la la ….”

Left in a huff? No. Left the current discussion (having made my points regarding Dr. Evans article) in disappointment over the rationality of others? Yes.

“Now – once the oceans/biosphere/atmosphere equilibrate, what processes remove CO2 from those climate compartments, and at what rates? That’s the question you have never answered, and have never acknowledged.”

KR,

Before you make an even bigger fool of yourself than you already have (if that is possible), for your own sake I urge you to get hold of a really simple, high school level organic chemistry textbook, and do some reading.

Then, when (if) you understand it, you can come back and explain to the rest of us what is wrong with the above statement of yours.

Until then, to be honest mate, you’re not worth wasting any more electrons on.

KR; Still haven’t grasped the significance of a tracer measurement of a system’s Impulse Response Function — and why the bomb spike measurement is a direct measurement of the “concentration change time” of CO2 in the atmosphere. (It directly answers the question: How fast will an impulse in CO2 concentration decay?)

My view on this is supported by linear systems theory and a hundred year’s of tracer measurements on complex systems. Your view simply represents a stubborn refusal to expand your knowledge.

Yes, CO2 exchanges with the oceans and the biosphere. No, it’s not the singlar molecular time of residence in the atmosphere, as there is CO2 coming back as well.

Nobody denies that. I’m begining to think you have a reading comprehension problem.

Now – once the oceans/biosphere/atmosphere equilibrate, what processes remove CO2 from those climate compartments, and at what rates? That’s the question you have never answered, and have never acknowledged.

You’re right, I have no answer to that, and I’m not very interested. (I have acknowledged it, however — reading comprehension again.)

Why is that not a very important question? Because it involves only 2% of anthropogenic CO2 (not 20% or 30%). Why is it only 2%? Because when the atmosphere and ocean equilibrate, the oceans contain 50 times as much CO2 as the atmosphere. Hence for every 100 units of CO2 injected into the atmosphere, 2 units will remain and 98 will end up in the ocean. (I’m ignoring the biosphere for simplicity.) The rate at which this equilibration occurs is controlled by the exchange rates between the atmosphere and ocean — which rates also determine the mean molecular lifetime.

So, make up all the models you like that predict that the 2% of excess CO2 in the atmosphere will remain for however many thousands of years you like. At current rates, Mankind might be able to double CO2 atmospheric concentrations in 3 or 4 thousand years.

Just don’t try to claim the residual is 30%, in direct contradiction to the empirical data (that you obviously haven’t understood).

BobC – No, it’s really getting tired of folks (like you) who have been pointed at their errors … over and over, but hold on to their unsupportable opinion.

I think I probably nailed it when I supposed that you are really bothered that we won’t just take your opinion as gospel. An alternate path might to be to actually engage me in a discussion about linear systems theory and tracer measurements instead of just dismissing the whole subject (which you apparently know nothing about) out of hand.

When you quote the other party there is a question: “Now – once the oceans…… equilibrate, what processes remove CO2 from those climate compartments, and at what rates? That’s the question you have never answered, and have never acknowledged.”

I don’t read the other party’s contributions but the question has answers.

For the atmosphere, sequestration by nature (trees anyone), this has been done to death and he pretends not to know.

The oceans take up CO2 which is badly needed in that environment and reduce atmospheric CO2.

The natural decay of rock and soil is washed into rivers , harbors and into the ocean.

The active ingredient of this natural process is Calcium such as Tristan or MattyB or KR may have in their teeth.

The Ca eventually links up with the CO2 and becomes, magically, via HCO3-, a deposit on the ocean floor which hardens to beautiful sedimentary rock.

Quick, think of a name for it. Calcium Carbonate or more commonly ???

CO2 doesn’t pollute anything it just make building stone for half the planet.

KR: Since you rely so completely on AGW (anthropogenic global warming) theory which is built on the Greenhouse Gas theory, you really need to read Dr. Pierre Latour’s recent paper questioning (really, refuting) the very existence of a greenhouse warming effect from misnamed “greenhouse” gases (greenhouses do not work as claimed … they insulate against heat loss by restraining convective heat loss).

After 300 plus comments i think it is time to summarise the points raised by Dr Evans.

1)CO2 effects on temp

The fact that co2 continues to rise but the temp refuses to budge has lead the warmistas to suggest that there is “something else” a something else that cannot be identified let alone measure. Rest assured when this somethin else goes away AGW will be back with a vengance.

Conclusion: The fact that there is something else the models have not included indicates that the models and therefore the theory has been falsified.

2) Hansen/IPCC predictions

Even the warmbots acknowledge these predictions have not come to fruition so in a =n effort to reduce the damage they have come up with all sorts of reasons as to why, these range from a reinterpretation of what the predictioner was actually predicting to the lowest of low blows……..cherry picking.

Conclusion: The predictions were based on the flawed theory and modelling in (1) so no wonder they got it wrong.

3) Ocean temps

The ocean temps show there has been no warming for the past ten or so years based on ARGO data, the warmbots claim (with some legitimacy) that this is too short a period to measure such things.

Conclusion: If we are to accept this reasoning as valid we should also accept that we, as in everyone has no idea about past ocean temps and the subject should be closed for debate until we can gather data over a time period acceptable to all.

4) Hot spot

First we are told the hot spot is a model produced warming in the atmosphere due to an increase in CO2, when it did not exist we were told it does not matter, then we are told it was found by using GPS data and it turned out it did matter afterall. When pressured to explain the methods by which it was found we were told it is there sometimes and sometimes not and anyway it could be there for any reason.

Conclusion: The whole topic of the hot spot is a sordid affair, truth be told it forms a central plank to the AGW theory and without it the theory is falsified hence the scramble to pretend it exists through GPS data. All this of course makes it difficult for the rank and file believer tp explain, hence the constantly changing version of events.

5) Outgoing radiation

Probably the most poignant point for the warmbots, the theory states that as the planet warms OR will reduce but sadly for these long time belivers the exact opposite is in fact happening. Which is probably why none of them are keen on discussing it as of yet.

conclusion: Time to pack up the soap boxes, bin the placards, cancel the march and go home to find another cause to fight for as the theory of AGW has been falsified.

“davidR” … that you cannot see the distortion in the Hansen & IPCC predictions (regardless of ENSO changes) is testimony to your own blindness in following warmist claims without question.

Good science demands skepticism. AGW proponents denounce skepticism. The conclusion should be obvious to anyone.

You would benefit from a reading of Dr. Pierre Latour’s recent paper questioning the assumed greenhouse effect theory. Latour’s paper is contained in a recent article by John O’Sullivan (http://www.webcommentary.com/docs/jo120117.pdf).

Bob,
In 1988 the computer models were very simplistic and they have been vastly improved since then. Many of the models at that stage still predicted cooling in the range of possibilities. It wasn’t until the mid 1990′s that the models improved to the point that the more extreme predictions were eliminated and the predictions consistently predicted warming.

Claiming to be a skeptic is not the same as being one. Climate scientists do not denounce skepticism. They denounce disinformation claiming to be skepticism.

Most disinformation is easy to dismiss because of the unscientific way in which it is presented.

So today has been my first in depth look at the AGW debate. I spent quite a few hours both at skepticalscience and here. I should first say that I was very surprised at the amount of dismissiveness shown by each side. The comments on each site are like mirror images of each other. I feel that I spent a lot of time wading through useless insults and so on. I think people who are familiar with this field should be more considerate of those passively reading the thread. It is rare for someone to concede in any internet argument. It is just as rare to find in depth discussion of technicalities and methodical issues. As I see it, the primary value of these public arguments lie in providing the interested reader insight as to the controversial aspects of an issue.

Anyway, I would like to give an outsiders perspective… please tell me if I am characterizing the current situation correctly:

It seems that everyone agrees the earth is warmer now than it was in 1900. Atmospheric CO2, as well as, “anthropogenic” CO2 (plus CH4, etc) emissions have been increasing over the same period. The correlation is obvious and I think everyone agrees that this is worthy of study.

Likewise, everyone seems to agree that the earth radiates IR light, and that CO2 absorbs and re-emits IR light.

There also appears to be agreement that variations of +/- 12 K have been occurring throughout earth’s history due to “orbital forcing” with estimates of atmospheric CO2 directly correlated but lagging this pattern. Although the pattern is accepted, there is some disagreement about the quantification here (since this is necessarily based on proxy measurements).

Academically, the big question is whether digging up a bunch of sequestered carbon and pumping CO2 into the atmosphere can also “force” a warming phase detached from the normal glacial cycle.

I think there is also agreement that no one foresees atmospheric CO2 will be present at sufficient levels to directly accomplish this. However, it is agreed that any factor increasing global temperature increases atmospheric water vapor, which could foreseeably force global warming.

This leads to a plausible theory that small increases in temperature due to anthropogenic CO2 can induce increased water vapor which will further increase temperature, cause release of CO2 from natural sinks, etc in a positive feedback loop. The most catastrophic end-game here would be a runaway greenhouse effect turning earth into a place similar to Venus. However, this possibility is extremely theoretical. A less catastrophic effect would be a smaller increase in temperature ( >2 K) which would not be incompatible with life as we know it, but could cause various problems for humanity, at least in the short term. We may want to attempt to avoid this possibility, which requires a rational assessments of the cost, benefit and various probabilities.

So the actual big question at hand is whether the conditional probability of “various problems for humanity” given that “an increase in anthropogenic CO2 can force global warming” is greater/less than the probability of “various other (primarily economic) problems for humanity” will occur given that “we do nothing”. The role of climatologists in answering this is providing an estimate of the prior probability that “an increase in anthropogenic CO2 can force global warming”.

Assessing this probability is problematic. I have noticed four primary problems:

1) Increased water vapor can also condense into clouds, which can function to reflect IR light back to earth, or reflect shortwave light back out to space. The role of clouds under conditions of cooling and warming has not yet been acceptably modeled and there is some preliminary data that they act as a negative feedback during short term temperature variations.

2) There may be unforeseen carbon and temperature sinks or sources.

3) There are difficulties in collecting accurate temperature and atmospheric data both about the present and, even more so, the past.

4) Even if accurate, establishing causation and extrapolating trends from such data is difficult due to the noise introduced by many “black swan” events as well as overlying short-term trends. As such, an unusually high degree of subjectivity is necessarily introduced into the data analysis process.

On the other hand, there is a large body of literature including multiple lines of evidence that do support this theory. Although many of the effect sizes are small, if we trust the data, it is telling us something is going on. On the face of it, this is not really surprising as we are the first species to dig up a bunch of carbon and pump CO2 into the atmosphere in massive amounts.

However, the use of phrases like “incontrovertible evidence” are drastically premature in light of the difficulties mentioned above. This, along with other evidence the field has been politicized (the argument from consensus), indicates that the literature (data and analysis) should be taken with a grain of salt.

The comments on each site are like mirror images of each other. I feel that I spent a lot of time wading through useless insults and so on. I think people who are familiar with this field should be more considerate of those passively reading the thread.

This is an unfortunate side effect of blogging about a subject for many years, day after day. Not every comment, nor even the majority of comments can be expected to be purely on “the science”.
If the subject does interest you, I urge you to look past the personality clashes, take in information about the various aspects of AGW and ask questions.
And keep visiting complimentary sites to get various perspectives.

Yep, will do when there’s time. Plenty of relevant info already in this thread. There is too much to respond to right now, I will digest it and return with questions later. I hope no one finds it rude if I didn’t respond…

It took me several years to be given this info by the mainstream scientists who are the custodians of real science.

Being very remote from my original studies I took the UV to IR via CO2 paradigm provided by the proponents of AGW and showed that the Human Origin CO2 cannot be considered in any way as being quantitatively involved or likely to be involved in Man Made Global Warming.

That was quite clear and it was always obvious that the back-radiation theory was a bad joke.

In the last month it has been made quite clear by a number of physicists that the main heat transfer mechanism at work in the lower atmosphere is not radiation but convection.]

The composition of the atmosphere is almost irrelevant when temperature is being assessed because Pressure is the controlling factor.

Your problem, Stochastic – assuming you’re genuine – and I have alarm bells ringing – is that you are looking for answers to “science” questions, on two sites where both the promoters and commentators long ago realised “science” has very little to do with “The Cause” and its backers, “The Team”.

At Septic Science what you will find is people dedicated to protecting The Cause, and The Team, and here you will find people committed to exposing what we see as the hidden agenda behind The Cause, and what we see as the scientific fraud committed by The Team to protect and promote The Cause.

I am afraid you will find much the same thing on most “quasi-scientific” sites – regardless of which side of the fence they claim to be on.

If you are indeed genuine might I suggest you try getting your “scientific” facts from someone who has to actually USE science in their profession, as opposed to just “producing” science – mainly to generate grant funds – or supporting OR attacking the science, to defend a pre-conceived outlook on a blog.

I am talking about an engineer. And not just any engineer. Burt Rutan, one of the most prolific and successful aerospace engineers today – designer of White Knight and Space Ship One, amongst many other things, AND a committed environmentalist – has put together a large amount of information that resulted from his own research on the subject.

I only became aware of it myself when someone else posted a link to it here on another thread the other day.

I had a quick look, but I was unable to find the comment so I could not credit the original poster. If he/she is reading, please step forward – credit where credit is due.

It helps that as an engineer myself (well originally), AND as an environmentalist, Burt Rutan has been a long-time hero figure of mine. Heck, the guy lives in a totally eco-self sufficient and largely self-built pyramid in the middle of the desert, where he amuses himself designing – and building – the next generation of space-craft that will take our children to the solar planets.

My only problem with Burt Rutan’s effort is that he says that there is a greenhouse gas effect with CO2. It is not important to the main points of his analysis, but it is still perpetuating a scientific myth.

Welcome aboard, and nice (partial) summary of the situation. What’s needs to be added is the requirement to verify (at least one of) the various theories before there is sufficient data to decide on any action.

I’m with engineer Burt Rutan here, that a theory that you are going to depend on to inform action must be verified, if disaster is to be avoided.

The first scientist to attempt to model the climate, Edward Lorenz, developed chaos theory to explain the inability to predict what seemed to be deterministic systems. It is generally recognized that weather is such a system, and, since climate is sequential weather, the implication is that the climate is also chaotic. Lorenz demonstrated that chaotic systems have a distinct prediction horizon, beyond which prediction is impossible.

There is only one way to prove that a chaotic system can be predicted, and that is by demonstration. Since the “climate crisis” is only a predicted one, it is especially important that the predictive skill of climate models be subjected to test.

As you can see from perusing the posts by those supporting AGW, they are more focused on making ad hoc excuses for prediction failure than they are on making falsifiable predictions that might validate (or invalidate) their theories. Until the issue of predictability is settled, there is no reason to take any risky action about “climate change”. (Cost effective actions, based on prudence is another thing — but these should consider warming and cooling as equal possibilities.)

As to information: I try to include links in my posts that allow interested parties to further research things for themselves. Almost always, (but not the next one) bolded, non-italicized text in my posts indicates an external link.

“”It seems that everyone agrees the earth is warmer now than it was in 1900. Atmospheric CO2, as well as, “anthropogenic” CO2 (plus CH4, etc) emissions have been increasing over the same period. The correlation is obvious and I think everyone agrees that this is worthy of study.”"

Nobody argrees to that at all. The increase Earths temp relates directly to the Suns isolation since the LIA, as our geologic records show. So often in threads, warmest come after to leave rhetoric.

“”I think there is also agreement that no one foresees atmospheric CO2 will be present at sufficient levels to directly accomplish this. However, it is agreed that any factor increasing global temperature increases atmospheric water vapor, which could foreseeably force global warming.”"

Fantasyland. Water vapor doesn’t force global temperatures, clouds are the thermodynamic distribution of heat. Forcing there is not. More rhetoric.

“”There may be unforeseen carbon and temperature sinks or sources.”"

Straight out of a dark ages text book, carbon has got nothing to do with forcing. More rhetoric. Forcing is the force of pressure on mass, that’s it. Enough this commentators statements are just rhetoric and not worthy of my dissemination.

The comments on each site are like mirror images of each other. I feel that I spent a lot of time wading through useless insults and so on. I think people who are familiar with this field should be more considerate of those passively reading the thread. It is rare for someone to concede in any internet argument. It is just as rare to find in depth discussion of technicalities and methodical issues. As I see it, the primary value of these public arguments lie in providing the interested reader insight as to the controversial aspects of an issue.

Basically Stochastic we have made up our minds and we just idle away the time here until the earth/climate tells us who is right and who is wrong. To be honest i gave little attention tio the AGW theory until one day they said “we need to apply a tax” the moment for me was when Al Gore made his movie and the only peice of evidence he gave in two hours was the ice core data which he used to show CO2 drives the temps. Little did people know a new improved method with a higher level of detail had already produced ice core data which showed temp drove CO2. Gore knew this data existed two full years before his movie but he chose to mislead people rather than present facts. Think about this………….if Gore had of told you temp drives CO2 how many copies of his movie would he have sold………..would Gillard have brought in a carbon tax?????????????????????

S. is correct because it has now been proven that any radiation from a cold atmosphere cannot add thermal energy to a surface which is significantly warmer. See the Radiation page on my site http://climate-change-theory.com

As for SkS, well they only appear to have a majority supporting AGW for the simple reason that they ban people like myself (9 times in fact) who submit scientific information which does not support the hoax that is AGW. One poster there (Tom Curtis) picks on skeptics, posts a lot of the typical arrogant waffle (usually off topic) and then asks moderators to ban the “skeptic” so that TC’s word stands last in the thread making it look as if the skeptic changed his mind and couldn’t respond. Does it remind you of Climategate? (I’ve posted screen captures of rejected posts on my site on the ‘SkS Errors’ page.)

Well, just a tiny point, Dr. Evans would have been correct up until about a year ago concerning my agreement that CO2, at the tiny concentrations at hand, contributes to warming. However, I am now not even so certain about that anymore.

In other words, I always thought CO2 made no measurable impact on global warming but have to modify that to “no measurable impact on global temperature … up or down.”

So the question becomes, if mean free path analysis confirms CO2 actually cools the earth a little, how long will it take these charlatans to flip ALL of their claims upside down and tell us the much truer horrors that global cooling will bring upon us from putting more CO2 into the air? Growing glaciers cutting off water supplies, reduction of growing seasons, expansion of black plague, no summer arctic melt causes hungry polar bears to migrate south in search of food – US!, (humans probably taste like chicken to them?), etc.

If you don’t believe me then consider that they already enjoy unfettered access to major news outlets with claims like, (top climate scientists reported today that..) cooler weather is consistent with global warming; CO2 causes more droughts and floods; warming causes more and less snow, etc. Trust me they WILL try to get away with whatever lie they can think of in order to keep riding their government funded gravy train and a lie that CO2 causes global cooling is a much easier lie with which to scare people.

Yes, Mike, cooling by CO2 is in fact more likely. There can be no warming because radiation from a cold atmosphere cannot transfer energy to a warmer surface, as per Prof Claes Johnson “Computational Blackbody Radiation.” However, cooling by CO2 takes place in two ways, both small of course …

(a) There is actually some IR radiation in the Sun’s spectrum which CO2 can absorb and send back to space.

(b) Oxygen and nitrogen molecules gain thermal energy by diffusion (molecular collision) from the surface and warm air then rises by convection. These molecules cannot radiate at atmospheric temperatures. So their “heat” must be transferred by collision to carbon dioxide and its colleagues who can then radiate away the thermal energy that was once in the oxygen and nitrogen. Guess what, the oxygen and nitrogen molecules end up cooler. Who knows how hot it might be up there but for CO2?

We don’t have to wait for the climate in the next few years to tell us who’s right and who’s wrong. Physics all along has been telling us. The warmists just don’t understand physics.

The most glaring mistake they make is in saying the atmosphere has warmed the surface (like a blanket) from -18C to +15C. The first figure is a theoretical temperature (call it small t) which is only related to the intensity of radiation via the S-B law which only relates to perfect blackbodies. Such blackbodies are usually other bodies in space which are perfectly insulated by space so there is no heat loss by conduction. In contrast the Earth’s surface is continually losing heat to the first millimetre of the atmosphere by diffusion (see Wikipedia “Heat Transfer” second paragraph) and also into the depths of the Earth’s crust or the oceans. So there is less energy left to radiate.

The actual temperature (call it capital T) is a totally different entity without direction for a start. So you cannot just subtract and get T – t = 33 deg.C, because t is not a real temperature. Without carbon dioxide and its colleagues, thermal energy would still diffuse from the surface into the atmosphere, greatly reducing the radiation, as it does. In fact the net radiation from the surface is probably less than 25 W/m^2, so what value of little t would that give you? Very cold I assure you.

This is why an IR thermometer cannot calculate temperature by measuring the intensity of the radiation and using S-B law. It can only do so by measuring the frequency and using Wien’s Displacement Law which says absolute temperature is proportional to the peak frequency.

So, given the major fallacy in the warmists “science” when they calculated and widely promulgated that 33 degree “difference” between apples and oranges, what confidence could we possibly have in any other deductions of theirs? They are also wrong in assuming radiation from a cold atmosphere can warm an already much warmer surface.

The atmosphere cools the Earth by reducing the amount of incident solar radiation which gets through. Hop out of a spacecraft and see how hot you feel in the sun’s rays. But radiation “temperature” is a very different thing from ambient temperature, both in space and, for example, at the top of a high mountain where the Sun’s rays might feel like 40C but the actual temperature of the air might be -15C.

It is important to remember that radiation is a measure of energy (Watts) transferred through a unit cross section (one square metre) and it is thus a vector with both magnitude and direction, nothing like a temperature. The only “connection” with temperature can be made if a true blackbody is emitting it, that body is not also losing thermal energy by conduction, diffusion, convection, evaporation or any other means. If it does lose energy in such ways then, at the very least, you would need much more information before making any inferences about its temperature.

Yes, the whole Earth plus atmosphere system looks like a blackbody from outer space and some average radiating temperature could be calculated by remembering that it is a spinning sphere, not a flat disk as warmists treat it as being. But whatever temperature is calculated is merely an average temperature somewhere in the atmosphere.

Yes Doug that all sounds very nice but it was all a waste of time as they are not listening, so as i said we sit here and entertain ourselves as we wait……and wait…..and wait…..one would think 15 years was enough to wait but apparently not.

The wait will be forever because the TOTAL energy effect of CO2 is 3.3 W/M2.This out of 120 W/M2 !

Double the CO2 concentration will produce about a 10% increase total effect of CO2.That brings it up to about a whopping 3.6 W/M2.

Meanwhile just in the Northern Hemisphere at 65 degree latitude.There has been a 32 W/M2 drop in summer energy in the last 6,000 years.Easily dwarfs any alleged increased warming power of the feeble gas.

John Kehr wrote a nice book about the Milankovitch cycle and explains very well how negligible CO2 warm forcing really is.The best I have yet seen and it is so easy to follow.I have the book on Kindle but better to read it on Cloud Reader for the many charts.

He utterly destroys the AGW hypothesis so well.The best demolishing I have even seen.He is qualified to understand the science.Here is his Biography

What evidence does Sabine provide that the “total anthropogenic CO2 emissions stored in the ocean appears to be about one-third of the long-term potential”? Did he use C14 tracer-measurements? I must say though, I do agree, that the C14 bomb-spike measurements that BobC is referring to does not disprove the IPCC’s claim that anthropogenic CO2 can significantly accumulate in the atmosphere. The nuclear C14 measurements simply tell us how fast CO2 is removed from the atmosphere (i.e. a measure of CO2’s atmospheric residence time) however, according to the IPCC, once human CO2 is absorbed by the oceans it is simply swapping with other CO2 molecules in accordance with the Revelle Factor. The Revelle Factor ordains that only 10% of the CO2 emissions from humanity will remain in the oceans. The upshot of all of this is that about 90% of anthropogenic CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere (obviously these are not the same original human CO2 molecules). This is referred to as CO2’s atmospheric lifespan or its perturbation time.

I must say though, I do agree, that the C14 bomb-spike measurements that BobC is referring to does not disprove the IPCC’s claim that anthropogenic CO2 can significantly accumulate in the atmosphere. The nuclear C14 measurements simply tell us how fast CO2 is removed from the atmosphere (i.e. a measure of CO2’s atmospheric residence time)

That’s not correct. It would be correct, IF there were no C14 in the oceans — then you would simply be seeing how fast CO2 was removed from the atmosphere.

HOWEVER, at the start of the “experiment” (atmospheric A-bomb testing), C14 was in equilibrium between the atmosphere and ocean. There was as much C14 going from the ocean to the atmosphere as from the atmosphere to the ocean.

(This is almost, but not quite correct, since C14 has a half life of 5000 years and is only produced in the atmosphere. Hence there was a very small excess in the atmosphere, ~0.1% above the static equilibrium value.)

So, the “bomb spike experiment“ is an actual measurement of how fast the atmosphere returns to equilibrium when an impulse of excess CO2 is added; and also what is the residual amount left in the atmosphere after equilibrium is re-established.

(In fact, this is a classic tracer measurement of the system Impulse Response Function — such as has been used on complex systems for at least a hundred years.)

Currently, the answers are:
1) The time constant (1/e time) for return to equilibrium is ~8 years. (This is also the Impulse Response Function of the system, and what KR calls the “concentration change time”.)

2) The residual is <= 3%. (This is still an ongoing experiment, as we watch the C14 concentration continue to decrease. The 3% value is the amount by which the current C14 atmospheric concentration exceeds the pre bomb concentration. This figure may level off where it is, or may continue to decline. It cannot become larger unless atmospheric sources increase.)

The Revelle Factor ordains that only 10% of the CO2 emissions from humanity will remain in the oceans. The upshot of all of this is that about 90% of anthropogenic CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere

This theoretical calculation is rendered moot by the actual measurements of C14.

1) The argument from the Revelle factor implies that anthropogenic CO2 is a minor factor in the oceans — only 10% going into the oceans.

2) The claims of dangerous ocean “acidification” imply that anthropogenic CO2 is a major factor in the oceans.

3) If, according to the Revelle factor, 90% of anthropogenic CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere, why is atmospheric CO2 concentration only increasing by an amount corresponding to only ~40% of anthropogenic emissions?

I think you are being overly generous to the warmers to call your points “contradictions”
when they are “Mistakes” or “assumptions without basis”.

I must admit I have not previously followed the C14 argument wrt measuring Human Origin CO2 levels in various compartments of the oceans and biosphere because I have tried to understand the problems from other view points.

Basic chemistry should dismiss their argument re point 1.

1) The argument from the Revelle factor implies that anthropogenic CO2 is a minor factor in the oceans — only 10% going into the oceans.

There is constant equilibration of CO2 between the air and oceans and so if the oceans hold 98% of all CO2 then they should also hold 98% of “man Made” CO2 leaving 2% of man made CO2 in the air to be eventually (2 years?) sequestered in the biosphere (trees, grass).

Your point 3 illustrates that they have not done a proper mass balance on the arrival and removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. Many sources have just been “disparu” for convenience.
Liked you analysis there.

3) If, according to the Revelle factor, 90% of anthropogenic CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere, why is atmospheric CO2 concentration only increasing by an amount corresponding to only ~40% of anthropogenic emissions?

The more you all talk about carbon dioxide, the more I think you don’t all yet understand that it can have zero (0.00000…) warming effect. Backradiation (if it existed) could not warm the surface and any warming of the atmosphere just leads to more energy being radiated away, eventually getting to space because the surface won’t accept it.

I am sympathetic with this point of view, Doug. In fact, the only long term (14 years) measurements of downwelling IR from the night-time atmosphere that I’m aware of (over the US’s Great Plains) showed decreasing IR back-radiation over that time, while CO2 continued to increase. The authors concluded that, if there was a signal from the CO2, it was buried in the noise and was unmeasurable.

That is consistent with zero, and I’m willing to accept that the climate effect of CO2 may well be unmeasurable. However, I’m not entirely convinced by theoretical arguments that it IS zero.

(In particular, I’m skeptical of the blackbody/thermodynamical arguments, since the behavior of the Earth-Sun system is more complicated than simple blackbody interactions. For example, the Earth heats up during daylight by absorbing mostly visible radiation from the Sun, which is unaffected by greenhouse gases. At night, the Earth mostly loses energy by infrared radiation, some of which is intercepted and re-radiated by greenhouse gases, and some of that is radiated back to the Earth. This re-radiatiated IR does not have to “heat the Earth” to make the average temperature of the Earth warmer — it just has to slow down the nighttime cooling by increasing the resistance of the energy loss path.
But, isn’t there an entire thread dedicated to this subject?)

I prefer empirical data — why I like the “bomb spike experiment”. It demonstrates, by actual measurement, that humans contribute a trivial amount to atmospheric CO2. So, whatever the real effect of CO2 on the climate is, the Human effect is unmeasurably small.

“It would be correct, IF there were no C14 in the oceans — then you would simply be seeing how fast CO2 was removed from the atmosphere. HOWEVER, at the start of the “experiment” (atmospheric A-bomb testing), C14 was in equilibrium between the atmosphere and ocean”.

That’s an interesting point Bob, and I must say, I never considered that. I understand that atmospheric CO2 with C12 and C13 exist in chemical equilibrium with oceanic DIC, but I have never heard of C14 existing in chemical equilibrium with the oceanic DIC. Perhaps it does. I’ll have to look that one up. Thanks for the clarification.

I have never heard of C14 existing in chemical equilibrium with the oceanic DIC. Perhaps it does. I’ll have to look that one up.

A good place to do so is the literature on radiocarbon dating, which depends on an even distribution of C14 throughout the biosystem (including oceanic).
**************************************
I just found an article on the C14 “Marine Reservoir” effect: The CO2 in the deep oceans can be old enough (> 1000 years) that concentrations are significantly affected by radioactive decay. This has to be accounted for in radiocarbon dating of marine bio materials, especially in regions where significant amounts of deep upwelling occurs.

In the bomb spike “experiment” this means that C14 is not in equilibrium with all ocean surface waters — in particular places where upwelling occurs will be deficient (by about 10 – 20%) in C14. This should be taken into account when analyzing the C14 data, and I don’t know if it has. The effect would be to make the real equilibrium time constant longer than the measured time constant, by an unknown amount (but which couldn’t exceed the 20% depletion of deep waters).

Still no way to get “hundreds to thousands” of years out of it — maybe 15 years max.

BobC Of course I prefer, in fact insist that empirical data backs up theory. So why is there apparently no published simple experiment showing backradiation slowing down the rate of cooling of some metal plate or whatever at night?

Reason: Any radiation from a cooler atmosphere does not have its coherent energy converted to incoherent thermal energy when it meets a significantly warmer surface. Only thermal energy can affect other thermal energy. You can only add or subtract like things. So no “slowing of the rate of cooling” is caused by any backradiation. See my Radiation page at http://climate-change-theory.com

Doug Cotton
February 2, 2012 at 11:21 am · Reply
BobC Of course I prefer, in fact insist that empirical data backs up theory. So why is there apparently no published simple experiment showing backradiation slowing down the rate of cooling of some metal plate or whatever at night?

I may disagree with your theoretical analysis, but I agree that you are right about the empirical evidence — there is no real-world evidence that CO2 causes any measurable effect on climate.

As to slowing the rate of cooling, here is a thought experiment:

Consider a calm, clear night in the desert with some constant temperature. A hot brick set out will cool down at some rate. If the brick is wrapped in a blanket, it will cool down more slowly. The blanket will also heat up to some temperature above what it would be without the presence of the hot brick, but less than the brick itself. Hence the blanket will be radiating more IR than it would if the brick had not heated it.

I would say that the brick cooled down more slowly because resistance had been added to the heat loss path. I would leave the blanket’s IR out of it.

In 1981 NASA’s Dr Hansen made a huge mistake in assuming the Earth’s surface radiates like a blackbody. A further assumption was made that radiation from a colder atmosphere can be converted to thermal energy by a significantly warmer surface. It cannot be, and so it cannot warm or slow the rate of cooling. See http://climate-change-theory.com for more detail.

As several have already pointed out it is unclarity about the 1.1°C warming per doubling of CO2.
Can anybody point out to material/experiments where this value is calculated or deducted?
Where does the number come from?

I shielded a small section of my backyard with a car windscreen shade (silver on each side) which I suspended at an angle of about 45 degrees so that it would not interfere with convection loss and would reflect away upward radiation from the ground. I used a digital thermometer with a metal spike which I inserted into the ground, or held in the air just above the ground for the ambient readings. The “shielded” ground readings were taken under the shade about 20cm from where it came down to the ground, whilst the “unshielded” readings were taken in an open area about 2m away.

Just a question….if CO2 is the main culprit (and they are talking an increase of 1C for a doubling (x2) of atmospheric CO2 (from 0.0028% to 0.0056%); what would happen if CO2 were to grossly increase to about 1% of the atmosphere (x500 which at current rates will be in the year 7000, or so)?
Although I don’t know, I suspect the increase would be in the order of 2-3C. This is because the bandwidth would be saturated and maxed out. And if the feedbacks remain at 0.5, then the actual temp might increase 1.5C from todays average.
Nothing to worry about.

Suppose you somehow placed a small metal marble-sized ball inside a hollow soccer ball-sized metal sphere and then sucked all air out to form a vacuum inside. Now, let’s assume the small ball was a few degrees hotter than the surrounding sphere. Further assume that the outer sphere is large enough so that there is much more radiative flux coming from it than from the smaller ball. This would be due to its greater surface area which would more than compensate for its cooler temperature.

So, we have a net radiative flux going from the cooler sphere to the warmer small ball inside it.

Will the small ball start to get warmer or start to cool?

Physics says that the flow of thermal energy can only be from hot to cold. But we have net radiative flux going from cold to hot. Hence the small ball must be rejecting (scattering and reflecting) the cooler radiation from the larger sphere. The large sphere will however absorb and convert to thermal energy the warmer radiation from the small ball. They each “detect” the temperature of the other because they detect the peak frequency and that frequency is proportional to the absolute temperature – see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wien's_displacement_law

The significance of this fact of physics is that a warmer Earth surface does not convert radiation from a cooler atmosphere to thermal energy. So the radiative atmospheric greenhouse effect is debunked.

Hi Doug,
I love your thought experiments mainly because I’m not a physicist.
I have a question that I hope you will answer in laymans terms for me.

Firstly, I assume that your ball bearing is not touching the sides of the metal soccer ball.

But more importantly, could you rephrase your sentence, “They each “detect” the temperature of the other because they detect the peak frequency and that frequency is proportional to the absolute temperature”

I kinda baulk at the word “detect”. Does Thomas Young’s interference patterns have anything to do with this process?

The “detection” takes place through resonance and near resonance usually over a narrow band of frequencies for any particular element at a given temperature. If the incoming frequency is too low there will be no effect because no resonance is created. If it is too high there will be “chaos” and thermal energy generated as a result, such as when the Sun’s light hits the surface. (For anyone not understanding “resonance” – A pendulum will “detect” if you are pushing it with the right natural frequency so that it keeps swinging.)

Unfortunately Doug I’m left with further questions relating to the frequencies emitted by both the small ball and the surrounding ball.
Why would the radiation emitted from either object be at the resonant frequency of the other object?
If a resonant frequency is required for the absorption of energy then isn’t it more likely that both balls would reflect the radiation back as it is not at resonant frequency or some suitable harmonic?

Furthermore, doesn’t it take a number of cycles for the effects of resonance to be noticeable?

To everyone: Consider a patch of rock being warmed by the Sun in the morning. The IPCC says backradiation will add more thermal energy, so it must warm faster. (It is not just a matter of backradiation slowing the cooling rate – it must be consistent in whatever it does. Either it adds thermal energy or it doesn’t.)

At some time soon after noon the Sun will bring the rock to a maximum temperature before it starts to cool towards evening. When at that maximum will the backradiation cause it to warm more? How could it, becuase that would be transferring thermal energy from a cold source to a warmer body. It is simply against the laws of physics. It simply cannot and does not happen. Yet the IPCC “explanation” of the GHE says it does.

Prof Johnson has proven why it doesn’t in his Computational Blackbody Radiation.The GH theory is debunked.

Many AGW proponents tend to treat the energy being transmitted by EM radiation as if it were thermal energy itself. Not so, of course, and hence you can’t just take a difference between two beams of light or other radiation and talk about net radiation. For a start the beams are really at all difference angles and may or may not be polarised. They do not normally cancel out.

It is invalid to add or subtract any energy in radiation until it is converted to thermal energy. Then you can add that thermal energy to whatever is already there. But you cannot assume all radiation will be converted to thermal energy when it strikes something. It can be transmitted, reflected, diffracted, deflected or scattered. It will only be converted to thermal energy if its peak frequency is above the peak frequency being emitted by the surface it strikes. So it has to come from a warmer source.

Hence thermal energy is not carried along in both directions when there are opposing beams of radiation. Only radiated energy is carried along. Thermal energy merely appears to be transferred but in fact it simply reappears only in a colder surface when the radiated energy is converted to thermal energy. It is a bit like your voice being broadcast on radio waves and only appearing under certain conditions in a radio receiver.

[Laser emission is actually different, because it is stimulated emission. We do find that, for example, 10.6 micron lasers can melt metal when cutting it. This could not be done with normal spontaneous emission from carbon dioxide at atmospheric temperatures. Why is it so? My best guess is that it is because the intensity is such that the photons arrive faster than the resonating frequencies of the metal, so it can't re-emit fast enough and has to convert to thermal energy because of the "chaos" created. Effectively the metal is then also undergoing stimulated emission, but the extra photons continue inwards and must cause warming.]

Because the energy in radiation from a cooler atmosphere cannot be converted to thermal energy when it strikes a (significantly) warmer surface, you have no thermal energy to affect either the rate of cooling each evening or the rate of warming each sunny morning.

So any such radiation from the atmosphere cannot in any way affect the temperature of the surface, or indeed the warmer areas of the atmosphere below the cooler level from which it was emitted. OK, there may be some rare weather conditions that result in warmer air a little above the surface, but these situations would be insignificant and have been happening since the Earth formed.

It should be clear from the above that a radiative greenhouse effect is a physical impossibility in the atmosphere..

If you don’t accept this, then you need to set up or find some experiment which actually demonstrates the opposite and actually shows thermal energy appearing to transfer from a cooler body to a warmer one. You could have metal plates isolated in a vacuum container or some similar set up. As far as I can determine, this has never been achieved, yet the IPCC are in effect saying it is happening all the time as their “backradiation” slows the rate of cooling of the surface, and must also increase the rate of any warming.

The IPCC propagates this garbage, so they should attempt to prove it empirically. Their faces will be the only things warming.

I came across one of the guys who seems to think “heat” dams up in the atmosphere. If it were to, then the “valley” at the tropopause should show some sign of warming.

Take a look at what’s really going on up there around the tropopause above which the temperature then starts to rise with increasing altitude in the stratosphere, so there’s a nice little “valley” for all your extra “heat”.

Check out what NASA satellites found up there at say 56,000 feet. Then compare 2003 with 2011 – both almost precisely the same around the -63 deg.C value. Here’s the link: http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/

Check all the records available (for every year since 2002) and see how little variation there has been. Then tell me what would happen on Earth if it warmed up to, let’s say, -60 deg.C.

“Unfortunately, there is no source in the literature, where the greenhouse effect is introduced in harmony with the scientific standards of theoretical physics.”

“As already emphasized in Section 2.1.5 the constant appearing in the T4 law is not a universal constant of physics. Furthermore, a gray radiator must be described by a temperature dependent (T) spoiling the T4 law. Rigorously speaking, for real objects Equation (70) is invalid. Therefore all crude approximations relying on T4 expressions need to be taken with great care. In fact, though popular in global climatology, they prove nothing!”

Here is a simple proof in 10 easy steps why the Greenhouse Effect is a physical impossibility.

(1) The IPCC claim that radiation from a cooler atmosphere slows the rate of cooling of the (warmer) surface, thus leading to a greenhouse effect.

(2) The “rate of cooling” is a 24 hour worldwide mean, so wherever the Sun is warming the surface (any sunny morning) the rate of warming would have to be increased by whatever process is slowing the rate of cooling.

(3) Thus extra thermal energy must be added to the surface by such radiation in order to increase the warming rate in the morning and slow the mean rate of cooling calculated from both day and night rates.

(4) Now the Second Law of Thermodynamics relates to heat transfer which is not the same as energy transfer. Radiated energy can be two-way, but heat transfer between two points is always one way and it is invalid to split such heat transfer into two opposite components and try to apply the Second Law to each. Physics doesn’t work that way.

(5) Hence, the surface cannot warm faster in the mornings due to such an imaginary heat transfer, because that would be clearly breaking the Second Law no matter what. Nor can it slow the rate of cooling because of (4). And in general you would expect the same process to happen whether the surface is warming or cooling.

(6) So, those photons from the cooler atmosphere are not being converted to thermal energy in the warmer surface, as Prof Claes Johnson proved in Computational Blackbody Radiation.

(7) Hence the effect of the photons being either reflected or scattered is that there is no impact on the surface at all.

(8) It is also clear that there is no significant transfer by diffusion or conduction from the atmosphere to the surface because the surface absorbs more solar insolation than the lower atmosphere, and we observe that the atmosphere is generally cooler and even cools faster at night than the surface.

(9) So it really does not matter even if extra thermal energy is trapped higher up in the atmosphere because it does not affect what we call climate, and any such energy cannot make its way back to the surface, except possibly an insignificant additional amount in precipitation.

(10) Hence there is no valid physical way in which backradiation or absorption by carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will cause a significant atmospheric greenhouse effect.

Firstly, the actual amount of backradiation must be grossly overstated because the emissivity of the atmosphere is only about 20% I understand and it is colder than the surface and emitting in all directions into a full sphere rather than a hemisphere. So how could NASA’s energy diagram possibly be right in showing similar values for emission from the surface as from the atmosphere. I postulate that the instruments calculate the radiative flux from the temperature assuming emissivity is unity and emission into a hemisphere.

But, whatever the amount of backradiation, it cannot transfer thermal energy from the colder atmosphere to the warmer surface as this would imply a heat transfer from cold to hot, which is against the Second Law of Thermodynamics. When the surface is warming on a sunny morning, for example, and net radiative flux is into the surface, how can additional heat be transferred from the colder atmosphere to the warmer surface against the Second Law. It can’t and all such radiation is reflected or (mostly) scattered and thus leaves no energy behind.

It follows that, since backradiation cannot add thermal energy to a warmer surface, then it cannot increase the rate of warming in the morning or slow the rate of cooling in the evening.

Backradiation is after all low energy radiation spontaneously emitted from a cold source. The peak frequency of the strongly attenuated spectrum is proportional to the absolute temperature (Wien’s Displacement Law) and such frequencies are usually lower than those in the radiation from the surface. Surface molecules “recognise” this and reject the low energy radiation which does not have enough energy to be converted to thermal energy. (See Prof Claes Johnson Computational Blackbody Radiation) http://www.csc.kth.se/~cgjoh/blackbodyslayer.pdf

We see examples of this in radio broadcasts where we know the radiation is even lower frequency than that in backradiation. It is of course artificially generated, but its frequency corresponds to much lower temperatures than normally experienced on earth or in the troposphere. For this very reason it is scattered by the surface and by the atmosphere and is not converted to thermal energy because it is “colder” even than the backradiation. If this were not the case, then it would have been quickly quenched as all its energy would have been used up warming whatever it struck. So it would not travel the distances that we know it does. Basically the same happens to backradiation and it just keeps getting scattered off molecules in both the atmosphere and the surface until it happens by chance to escape to space.

So the (latest version of) the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is (like the first version) a physical impossibility.

Prof Claes Johnson has proved in Computational Blackbody Radiation* that energy in radiation only gets converted to thermal energy if the peak frequency of the radiation from the source is above the peak frequency of the radiation from the target.

This essentially provides a mechanism which explains why the Second Law of Thermodynamics also applies for radiative heat transfer, as it does for heat transferred by conduction.

It is not the net radiative flux (or even its direction) which determines whether (and in which direction) thermal energy is transferred. For example, if the emissivity of two bodies is very different, there can be more radiative flux from the cooler one. But all that flux will be scattered by the warmer one and not converted to thermal energy. Only the flux from the warmer one (no matter how weak) will be converted to thermal energy in the cooler one. This “ensures” that the Second Law is valid in all cases because it depends on peak frequency which is proportional to absolute temperature – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wien's_displacement_law

(1) The direction of net radiative energy flow can be the opposite of the direction of heat transfer. if you have a warmer object (say 310 K) with low emissivity (say 0.2) and a cooler object (say 300 K) with much higher emissivity (say 0.9) then net radiative energy flow is from the cooler to the warmer object. Yet the Second Law says heat transfer is from hot to cold.

(2) Any warming of a warmer surface by radiation from a cooler atmosphere violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Consider the situation when the surface is being warmed by the Sun at 11am somewhere. Its temperature is rising and net radiative energy flow is into the surface. How could additional thermal energy transfer from the cooler atmosphere to make the surface warm at a faster rate?

Clearly radiation from a cooler atmosphere cannot add thermal energy to a warmer surface. The surface molecules “reject” radiation which has a peak frequency lower than the peak frequency of their own emission, and so no radiative energy is converted to thermal energy. (This was proved in Johnson’s Computational Blackbody Radiation.), So the atmospheric radiative greenhouse effect is a physical impossibility.

Anyone who thinks about these points will realise there is no greenhouse effect …

(1) The direction of net radiative energy flow can be the opposite of the direction of heat transfer. If you have a warmer object (say 310 K) with low emissivity (say 0.2) and a cooler object (say 300 K) with much higher emissivity (say 0.9) then net radiative energy flow is from the cooler to the warmer object. Yet the Second Law says heat transfer is from hot to cold. So, there is no warming of the warmer body by any of the (net) radiative energy going into it.

(2) Any warming of a warmer surface by radiation from a cooler atmosphere violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Consider the situation when the surface is being warmed by the Sun at 11am somewhere. Its temperature is rising and net radiative energy flow is into the surface. How could additional thermal energy transfer from the cooler atmosphere to make the surface warm at a faster rate?

Clearly radiation from a cooler atmosphere cannot add thermal energy to a warmer surface. The surface molecules scatter radiation which has a peak frequency lower than the peak frequency of their own emission, and so no radiative energy is converted to thermal energy. (This was proved in Johnson’s Computational Blackbody Radiation.), So the atmospheric radiative greenhouse effect is a physical impossibility.

I think the issue here is “how can CO2 be such a danger to the world, and how is man responsible based on the following.”

Assuming these numbers are correct, CO2 is a gas that makes up 0.04% of the atmosphere. The current rate of CO2 increase is approximately 1.5 ppm per year, and humans are thought to be responsible for 3% – 5% of that 1.5 ppm, or 1 part in 20 million.

As Doug has noted, the IPCC models go against the second law of thermodynamics.

NASA satellites show that supposedly trapped heat (according to IPCC models) is actually flowing out into space, and the supposedly positive “feedbacks” of water vapor and clouds are really negative.

There is no “glass roof” on earth to trap excess heat… it escapes upward into space.

I don’t have the scientific background that many of the responders seem to have, so I try and keep things simple. I do know that contributors like KR seem to have trouble defending their positions, and can’t seem to give examples of why skeptics are wrong.

When solar radiation (UV, visible and IR etc) travels through space we do not know what its end effect will be until it strikes something. We will observe its effect and say – there’s some light from the Sun – but it may be more light if it hits a white surface than a dark surface, as a camera exposure meter will confirm. It may generate thermal energy (more or less depending on what it strikes) or it may appear as light as it starts to penetrate the oceans, but end up as thermal energy in the deeper depths. Of course some will be reflected or scattered and strike another target sooner or later, and another etc.

My point is, “heat” is the transfer of thermal energy, but thermal energy is not a fixed amount of energy travelling along with radiation. The energy in the radiation has to go through a physical process of being converted to thermal energy. This happens only for those frequencies in the radiation which are above the natural frequencies that can be emitted by the target, because the target cannot re-emit those frequencies. (The hotter the source of spontaneous radiation, the higher will be the peak frequency.) So solar radiation can be converted to thermal energy in the Earth’s surface, but radiation emitted from a cooler atmosphere cannot be converted to thermal energy in a warmer surface. “Heat” only appears to be transferred (and only from hot to cold) because only radiation from hot to cold will be converted to extra thermal energy in the target.

It does not matter whether you are increasing the rate of warming in the morning or decreasing the rate of cooling later in the day, you still need extra thermal energy to do this. You cannot get this extra thermal energy from a cooler atmosphere, morning or evening. You cannot say the Second Law is not broken because of the direction of net radiation or net heat flow. All that matters is, what actually happens between any two points – one point on the surface and one point in a cooler atmosphere. What goes on between other “points” – a point on the Sun and another point on the surface is irrelevant. The Second Law must apply between any two points.

If your bath tub is filling as fast as it can with the hot tap turned on fully it will indeed fill faster if you also turn the cold tap on.

If the Earth’s surface is filling with thermal energy (ie it is warming) as fast as it can on a sunny morning with the Sun shining fully it will indeed fill (warm) faster if you also radiate extra thermal energy from a colder atmosphere if and only if you violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Suppose you pass radiation from a slightly cooler object (surface area 5 sq.m, 300 K) through a reflective funnel which concentrates the radiation onto a slightly warmer object (310 K) with the same emissivity of, say, 0.9 but surface area only 0.5 sq.m.

Please explain with suitable calculations how the Second Law of Thermodynamics would actually apply to ensure thermal energy only transferred from the warmer to the cooler object.

I will also post this on several other forums to see if anyone has a correct solution other than mine, which you should know by now if you’ve read my posts.

KK: The point is that the two plates remain at the same temperature. If you just did calculations and found that net radiation was from the larger to the smaller (because of the concentrating effect of the funnel) then, if you thought like the IPCC and most middle-of-the-road skeptics, you would say that the small plate would get warmer because more photons are heading its way, and the larger one would get cooler. But the Second Law says that can’t happen. Hence the calculations these people use are wrong because they give the wrong answer here. And they also give the wrong answer when the larger plate is a little cooler than the small one, yet heat flows from the smaller to the larger, against the net flow of radiation.

In general, all the IPCC models violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Skeptics need to hammer home this one single point, because it completely nails it. I have never been proven wrong on this.

They should only include the radiation from hot to cold, and never any radiation to any body which is cooler than the source. Hence they should not include backradiation in any calculations becasue it is just scattered by the surface and goes on up to space or to yet cooler layers of the atmosphere. It can never slow the rate of cooling of the surface. Hence the radiative greenhouse effect is a physical impossibility.

KK: Suppose the plates at both ends of the funnel are at the same temperature. The larger plate sends more radiation (concentrated by the funnel) to the smaller plate. So there is net radiation towards the smaller plate, but there can be no conversion of the energy in that radiation to thermal energy. So I’m just demonstrating my point that not all radiation hitting a surface (not being reflected) will necessarily warm it. The IPCC assumes it will. Thus the IPCC is wrong.

My two-plate experiment (with a tapered funnel between) is demonstrating a principle of physics which has been denied by the IPCC and even middle-of-the-road skeptics, namely that backradiation from a cooler atmosphere cannot be converted to thermal energy when it strikes a warmer surface, and thus cannot slow the cooling process or increase the warming from the Sun. This is also proven by a certain Professor of Applied Mathematics in a linked paper on the ‘Radiation’ page of my site. and I have explained the physical processes pertaining to frequencies and Wien’s Displacement Law in several posts.

Now at least read my earlier posts or my website before you run off at a tangent again.

(1) The specular (mirror-like) reflection where angle of incidence = angle of reflection.

(2) The “diffuse” reflection which is deflected at any random angle..

Here the second component is what I prefer to call deflected (or scattered) radiation, as the process is very different from specular reflection. But whatever you call it, it obviously does exist.

This is the process I have been talking about all along. As far as energy is concerned, as I have always said, it is the same as reflection and thus has no effect whatsoever on the temperature of the target, in this case the surface.

This diffuse reflection is what happens when the target is warmer than the source. If such radiation were absorbed and converted to thermal energy there would be a violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. That is why you need to know the temperatures of both source and target before you can know the overall absorptivity and emissivity. These factors will be affected by this diffuse reflection, which cuts in when the target starts to get warmer than the source.

Thus, all radiation from a cooler atmosphere undergoes diffuse reflection when it strikes a warmer surface. This is why an atmospheric radiative greenhouse effect is a physical impossibility.

I am of course aware that “diffuse” reflection is usually applied to reflection of light which appears to be diffused because of a rough surface. On a microscopic scale, the rough surface may well comprise many small smooth surfaces which simply produce specular reflection at various angles.

So, strictly speaking, the “rejection” of low frequency radiation (from a cooler source) which meets a warmer surface and then resonates and is scattered is yet another different process. But it helps to think of it as diffuse reflection because the end result is the same. My main point is that it can have no effect on the surface temperature because it is as good as reflected.

When IR from the atmosphere strikes a rough Earth surface, you would not be able to distinguish between this scattered radiation and diffuse reflection. In general you will measure inflated values of emissivity as a result. I would suggest that true absorptivity should be expressed as a function of both source and target temperatures. Then its measure should reflect the proportion of the radiation from a source at that temperature which is actually absorbed and converted to thermal energy. In the case of a target temperature greater than a source temperature the absorptivity would thus always be zero.

So this is where models go wrong because they use mean absorptivity measurements which disregard the temperatures of source and target and probably include a lot of scattered radiation anyway. Thus the models end up assuming thermal energy is transferred to the warmer atmosphere simply because they do not rate absorptivity for the relevant temperatures as being zero. Thus they assume violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and are of course wrong as a result. There can be no radiative Greenhouse effect.

In calm conditions on a clear day we have the Sun (and only the Sun) warming the surface. Its high frequency (high energy) radiation right across its spectrum can be converted to thermal energy (if not already reflected) and this energy flows by conduction deeper into the land surfaces. The radiation itself already penetrates a fair way into the oceans before it is converted to thermal energy in the depths. Meanwhile thermal energy is also escaping the surface more or less as fast as conduction in the land and convection in the oceans will allow it to get back to the surface.

In the morning the rate of warming exceeds the rate of cooling, and vice versa in the evening. In summer the longer hours of daylight may trap some energy that cannot escape before the next morning. This trapped energy may build up as the middle of summer approaches, but escape by the next winter as daylight hours reduce and there is more time for cooling at night.

Now, looking at the cooling process, at least half (maybe 70%) of the thermal energy escapes to the atmosphere by evaporation, chemical processes and diffusion, which involves molecular collisions between the surface and the adjoining air, as in conduction in solids. The remaining energy will be radiated.

However, experiments in such conditions show that the lower atmosphere is always cooler than the surface, and cools faster than the surface at night. Radiation can never transfer heat from a cooler source to a warmer target and neither can diffusion. So these processes can never make the atmosphere warmer than the surface. The Sun also usually warms the surface faster than the lower atmosphere, so it is only very unusual weather conditions which might leave the surface cooler than the adjoining air. The air which is warmed in the morning will rise by convection.

The radiation from the surface may escape to space, but most will be absorbed by some molecules in the atmosphere. These molecules are likely to be warmed and may share some of the thermal energy with other molecules, or simply radiate it in all directions in small bursts.

The radiation which is emitted by the cooler atmosphere will have frequencies which are generally lower than the original radiation from the surface. If some of this radiation gets to the warmer surface it cannot be converted to thermal energy. Instead it is simply scattered by the surface without leaving any energy behind. Its energy cannot be converted back to thermal energy until it collides with something cooler than the original layer of the atmosphere from which it was emitted. Such cooler air will usually be higher up. It may even escape to space and only warm some cooler object in space maybe years later.

So each time any radiation goes back to the surface it will have absolutely no effect on the surface temperature, but will instead make it further towards space on the next trip up, if indeed it doesn’t escape altogether. Clearly there can be no Greenhouse effect.

Footnore: In situations when the relative humidity is high, the moist adiabatic lapse rate is lower than the dry one, so such humidity (as well as clouds) can slow the rate of cooling of the atmosphere, but this can never lead to any thermal energy going back into the surface, so the rate of cooling of the surface need not be slower. In a sense, thermal energy is falling over a smaller temperature step, but it still falls over at the same rate. The air we stand in may well feel warmer partly because there is less evaporation off our skin. In any event, these are just weather conditions which average out and do not relate to or affect climate.

Guys, you can stop worrying about endless warming going up forever with carbon dioxide levels. It can’t happen.

The whole Earth system (including atmosphere) has to emit very close to the flux it receives from the Sun. So there will be some temperature – let’s say 255K – which is a mean and is somewhere up in the atmosphere.

The natural adiabatic lapse rate is determined, not by carbon dioxide, but by the acceleration due to gravity, the mass of the atmosphere and, to some extent, relative humidity which mostly averages out. The lapse rate sets the gradient of the atmospheric temperature plot which has to swivel about the 255K mean, so the surface end is warmer and the TOA colder. The drop in temperatures between the surface and the tropopause has been very close to constant in all the years of records shown on the NASA site since the end of 2002.

My point is that the mean surface temperature is dictated by these two values – the 255K (or whatever the exact figure is) and the lapse rate. Carbon dioxide cannot affect either, so neither are under mankind’s control.

Both the surface and the atmosphere will simply shed energy faster if they get a little warmer, thus tending back to the mean.

Don’t try to tell me there is a long term TOA net radiative flux difference. The net radiative flux varies between about 99.5% and 100.5% of incoming radiation. This is just random noise or short-term cycles. Longer natural cycles may have to do with variations in the effective power from solar radiation (affecting that 255K figure) and maybe the thermal energy generated under the surface. Small variations in the latter over many thousands of revolutions of the Earth could have a cumulative effect. The very fact that the terrestrial heat flow is low means that the massive quantity of thermal energy from the surface down to the core stays fairly much the same and brings about a stabilising effect as I have explained on the ‘Explanation’ page of my website. . This also is an additional comfort, so relax!

Guys, you can stop worrying about endless warming going up forever with carbon dioxide levels. It can’t happen.

A straw man statement?

I fail to know of a single climate skeptic who dispute the above quote.So why are you making it appear that skeptics do dispute it?

The rest of your post will not be addressed for the simple reason that you or anyone else DOES NOT really know what the heck is truly going on.The interactions in the climate system is far from being understood because it is so darn complex.I know because I have read so many variations on what the GH effect is by many SKEPTICAL people in blogs and even in the private e-mails debates I am privy to.I quite trying to make sense of it and dropped out.

The endless debates between the (NO GHG effect) camp and the common position of the lukewarmer skeptic (That accepts the CO2 molecular level GHG effect) has become irritating to me because the real fight is with the AGW believers who aggressively advance the unsupported idea that the large POSITIVE feed back is real and will swoop down on us and cook us all to death (yes I know it is hyperbolic).

The fight should be with those who push the AHW conjecture and in using their unverified brand of science tries to implement their overbearing Gian socialist utopian solutions upon the rest of us.The absurd infatuation with Carbon Credits,Wind power,Solar Power (all low mass and therefor essentially worthless for large scale production) and so on needs to be exposed as the Envirowacko weenie baloney it is.

The infighting needs to stop and have all of us get back on the attack against the AGW pseudo science babbling and WIN!

Interesting that sunsettommy’s website has this quote prominently displayed …

“It is our attitude toward free thought and free expression that will determine our fate. There must be no limit on the range of temperate discussion, no limits on thought. No subject must be taboo. No censor must preside at our assemblies.”

Sunsettommy: I am only interested in what is the truth my friend, and I will not compromise truth in physics for any lukewarm argument, because, as far as physics is concerned, lukewarmers are just as incorrect. You either violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics (as AGW and Lukewarmers do) or you don’t. Radiation from the atmosphere cannot warm the surface or slow its rate of cooling one iota.

Well sunsettommy boy should test what happens after sunset when I (and Prof. Nahle) found backradiation did not even slow the cooling of the surface by 0.1 degree.

But of course, seeing that he refuses to read what I am explaining to him and also to middle-of-the-road “skeptics” about how heat can’t transfer from cold to hot, there’s no point in my wasting time on him. My posts, websites and book (soon to be published) will stand the test of time.

Doug, just because you outlast and wear people down (e.g., sunsettommy) with your single-minded focus, does not constitute proof that you are right.

Regarding radiation transfer: You claim that radiation from a cooler object cannot be converted to thermal energy when impinging on a hotter object. What possible mechanism can account for this, given that

a) Both objects radiate a range of wavelengths, given by the blackbody spectrum (assuming they are approximately blackbodies).

b) These blackbody spectrums overlap, even though the bodies are at different temperatures (look at the blackbody spectrums for different temperatures).

c) Hence the cooler object will be emitting some radiation at a shorter wavelength than the radiation peak of the hotter object.

d) The radiation from the cooler object, described in (c), will, upon impinging on the hotter object, be indistinguishable from the same radiation arriving from a hotter object. (Maxwell’s equations do not allow for EM radiation to carry the ‘memory’ of how hot the emitting object was.)

The inescapable conclusion from the above is that some of the EM radiation from the cooler object will be absorbed and converted to thermal energy by the hotter object. The only way this can’t happen is if NO radiation whatsoever can be absorbed by the hotter object, which contradicts the assumption that is is approximately a black body.

The obvious effect of this is that the radiative cooling of the hotter body will be slowed down by the presence of the cooler body, because some of the energy is being returned. This is completely different than there being a NET transfer of heat from the cooler body to the hotter body, which I agree is not possible.

(The above analysis also explains why a room in which the walls (floor, ceiling also) are heated (to less than body temperature, but greater than the air temperature) is more comfortable than a room with the same air temperature in which the walls are cold — your radiative heat loss rate is reduced in the room with warm walls. Try standing near a large window when it is cold out, if you want to experience this phenomenon yourself.)

I think your experimental efforts are commendable and in the best traditions of science. Here is an experiment you can do to test the above analysis:

Take two hot objects (closed containers of heated water would work) and put them out on an insulated platform under a clear night sky. (A clear night in the desert would be ideal, as the sky has a very low radiative temperature then, but a clear night anywhere would work.)

Suspend two identical sheets of metal above the hot containers. These should obscure a significant part of the sky, say 30-60% (from the POV of the containers).

Heat these metal sheets (perhaps with an electric resistance heater) to a temperature less than the hot objects, but above the sky’s radiative temperature. (This could also be done indoors, if both the hot object and the cooler, but still heated sheet are above the temperature of the room.)

Make comparison measurements to determine if the rate of cooling of the hot objects is affected by the temperature of the (cooler) metal sheets above.

I predict you will see an effect — you predict you won’t. Only testing can determine for sure which one of us is right.

I didn’t read past this incorrect statement:The radiation from the cooler object, described in (c), will, upon impinging on the hotter object, be indistinguishable from the same radiation arriving from a hotter object.

The temperature information is carried in the peak frequency of the radiation from the source – as per Wien’s Displacement Law – learn some physics.

The computational proof is in a paper linked from the Radiation page on my website. I have also described the physical mechanism relating to resonance in several previous posts.

It is the fact that he made a couple of dumb replies to my obvious point (Post 124.2) on why skeptics should stop the infighting and fight the AGW supporters instead.

He is a single issue debater and will not adequately address any other point.He is doing that all over the skeptic blogs.Getting banned one by one for his boorish and know it all attitude.The thread bombings he does is the main cause for his bannings.

This is a fanatic not worth spending much time with as you will quickly find out.

I invited him to my forum because there is a section in that forum specifically for discussing the NO GHG effect argument.I thought he would be happy to confer with a few others who have a similar viewpoint that he expresses here.Including Nasif Nahle who is also a member of my forum.

Doug joined and made ONE post there 6 days ago that has a reply to it the same day.He has visited a couple times since but shows no interest to discuss it.

Yes, well the thread on that forum which talks about Claes Johnson’s work is closed with incorrect conclusions I suggest. See my #127 here which might help you also to understand why Claes is totally correct about the cut-off frequency.

The Second Law cannot work in all cases (such as focused emission) unless Claes is correct.

“Backradiation” from the silver lining inside a vacuum flask does not make the coffee any hotter, and nor does backradiation from a cooler atmosphere help the Sun to warm the sand on the beach any faster any sunny morning – which is what the AGW proponents assume.

OK One more sentence where I can help by pinpointing the error in your thinking …..

The obvious effect of this is that the radiative cooling of the hotter body will be slowed down by the presence of the cooler body, because some of the energy is being returned. This is completely different than there being a NET transfer of heat from the cooler body to the hotter body, which I agree is not possible.

No it’s not completely different. While the energy is still in the radiation it is not equivalent to thermal energy because it has not yet been converted. It cannot affect the temperature of the target unless and until it is converted to thermal energy. Only thermal energy can be added to other thermal energy with a resulting temperature change. You can only slow a rate of cooling by adding thermal energy. Hence the original thermal energy from the cooler body would have to end up being thermal energy in the warmer one before having any effect on temperature. Hence the 2nd Law would be violated.

My funnel experiment focuses more radiation from a large object onto a small one at the same temperature and made of the same metal material. What happens? Think about it. The only way the 2nd Law can apply is if you always disregard the radiation from cold to hot and only consider the radiation from hot to cold.

Any radiation from cold to hot merely resonates – as it can because the hotter body can always itself radiate at all the frequencies in the cooler body emission. It is as good as if diffuse reflection had happened – no energy is left behind and there is no effect on the temperature of the hotter body.

Obviously radiation from the cooler atmosphere can have no effect on the rate at which the land surfaces transfer thermal energy to the atmosphere by diffusion (conduction-like molecular collision) and chemical processes, nor the rate at which liquid surfaces do so by these processes as well as by evaporation. The effect of all these processes is at least 50% of all cooling, maybe as much as 70%.

(Note that, when the temperature of the adjoining air is close to that of the surface then S-B Law gives a very low value for radiation out of the surface, because you have to deduct a compensating term for the temperature of the air which might be only 2 deg.C lower, for example.)

So for a start, the energy in the radiation from the atmosphere would obviously have to be converted to thermal energy in the surface before it could have any effect on this thermodynamic half of all the cooling.

Now, if it were not first converted to thermal energy, how on Earth can one beam of radiation (with different frequencies and arriving at a different angle) possibly have any dampening effect on some other totally different beam of radiation?

It can’t. Any effect can only happen via thermal energy. If its energy were first converted to thermal energy then the 2nd Law would be violated.

In case I am still not convincing someone, the AGW models assume backradiation works 24 hours a day – right? So they assume it also “works” when the temperature of the surface is getting hotter on a clear sunny morning and net radiation is into the surface. The assume that, not only does it slow the rate of cooling in the evening, but it still does something in the morning, namely increases the rate of warming.

Now if that is not adding thermal energy from a cooler atmosphere to a warmer surface then I’m a monkey’s uncle. So it is violating the Second Law.

(It is also doing so if it slows the rate of cooling as I explained in #127.)

Yes, well the thread on that forum which talks about Claes Johnson’s work is closed with incorrect conclusions I suggest. See my #127 here which might help you also to understand why Claes is totally correct about the cut-off frequency.

You will get a lot more attention if you post in the GWS forum there than you will here where you are now being ignored.

I see you at my forum for a short while but not post there.Yet you post all over the internet where you are getting banned for pushing your position so aggressively.My forum will still be there when you finally have the need to talk about what you believe.

Doug Cotton
February 23, 2012 at 8:18 am · Reply
OK One more sentence where I can help by pinpointing the error in your thinking …..

Doug, you’re simply disagreeing with my conclusion — you aren’t making any statement about my reasoning.

Try answering the question I asked by showing where my reasoning is wrong:

What mechanism supposedly prevents the absorption of EM energy by a hot object from a colder one? Note that some of the EM radiation from a colder object is indistinguishable from radiation from a hotter object, due to the wide (and overlapping) extent of the blackbody radiation spectra from objects of different temperatures.

Hence, if a warm object will absorb radiation from a hotter one, it will also absorb the exact same radiation from a colder one. (This does not violate the 2nd Law of Thermo, however, since the hottest object will have the highest radiant intensity, guarenteeing the NET energy flow is to the colder objects.)

To be specific, according to Planck’s law (which I assume you accept), any object with an emissivity greater than zero and a temperature greater than zero K will emit EM quanta with a wavelength of, say, 1 micron. All one micron wavelength photons are identical — they do not contain information about the temperature of their emitter.

When a one micron photon arrives at an object, it will be absorbed and converted to thermal energy with a probability equal to the object’s absorptivity at that wavelength.

Every blackbody can emit one micron photons, regardless of its temperature, and every blackbody can absorb one micron photons regardless of its temperature. A photon carries no information regarding the temperature of its emitter. Hence a hot object can absorb a one micron photon from a colder object. (This obviously holds for all other wavelengths of EM radiation, as well.)

The net heat flow from hot to cold (and compliance with the 2nd Law) is maintained by the fact that hot objects radiate at higher intensities (more photons/sec) than colder objects, given the same area and emissivity — according to Planck’s Law and innumerable experiments and experience.

The 2nd Law is therefore the result of the emissivity (and absorptivity) of black bodies described by Planck’s Law — the absorption and emission characteristics are not the result of the 2nd Law.

You really need to study what Claes Johnson (Professor of Applied Mathematics) has written in Computational Blackbody Radiation even if you (or other readers) can’t follow the calculations. I can assure you that he is correct.

All the frequencies for a colder body are included in those for a warmer body.

The common frequencies resonate and that means there is no conversion to thermal energy. That’s how and why the Second Law works for radiation.

Radiation from a hot body to a cold one has higher frequencies which cannot resonate, and because they cannot resonate (and be immediately “rejected”) the energy in those higher frequencies has to be converted to thermal energy, as when solar insolation strikes the land surfaces or the oceans. In contrast, none of the frequencies in radiation from the cold body have to be converted in the hot body.

I have explained all this in previous posts and on my websites. Johnson proves it computationally and Nahle proves it empirically.

Absorptivity is conditional upon the temperatures of source and target. The Second Law dictates that effective absorptivity is zero when the source is cooler than the target.

Doug Cotton
February 23, 2012 at 8:01 am · Reply
I didn’t read past this incorrect statement: The radiation from the cooler object, described in (c), will, upon impinging on the hotter object, be indistinguishable from the same radiation arriving from a hotter object.
The temperature information is carried in the peak frequency of the radiation from the source – as per Wien’s Displacement Law – learn some physics.

Right… The peak frequency is a characteristic of the ensemble of photons coming from a blackbody — a statistical quantity. The individual photons are indistinguishable from photons of the same wavelenghs coming from a different ensemble (blackbody of a different temperature).

Absorption and emission occur on a quantum level — one quanta at a time. Since you obviously think highly of your physics knowledge, kindly show me where the ensemble information is entered into Planck’s Law — the law that describes absorption and emission of blackbodies.

If you think you are right, then explain the mechanism by which the Second Law applies in the case of greater radiative flux from a large source being focused by a funnel onto a much smaller target at the same temperature and made of the same material, and thus emitting less flux itself. The Law dictates that there can be no change in temperature, but there is clearly net radiative flux from the large to the small.

What happens if the small one is warmed externally by, say, two degrees but still emits less total flux than it receives focused on it from the cooler but much larger one?

You need to learn some optics. Any concentrator, whether it is a funnel or a lens, increases the solid angle of the radiation by the same degree it reduces the area. Planck’s Law gives you the radiant intensity per unit area of a blackbody. Since radiant intensity is power per unit solid angle, therefore any concentrator of EM radiation does not change the radiant intensity per area (the solid angle increases inversely with the area decreasing) — which is the characteristic of a blackbody at a given temperature.

Therefore, you can’t change the apparent temperature of a blackbody by using a magnifying glass or funnel to concentrate the radiation. You can’t, for example, heat anything hotter than the surface of the Sun by using concentrators to collect solar radiation.

This is first year geometrical optics, Doug; not some magical effect of the 2nd Law.

That’s not what I said. But you can focus the Sun’s rays with a funnel and cook food, which would not get cooked without the funnel. And you can burn paper with a magnifying glass that would not get burned without the glass.

Obviously the source with the larger area is emitting more total energy simply because it is larger. Without the funnel less of that energy would have reached the smaller body. You confuse yourself.

Doug Cotton
February 23, 2012 at 9:47 am · Reply
That’s not what I said. But you can focus the Sun’s rays with a funnel and cook food, which would not get cooked without the funnel. And you can burn paper with a magnifying glass that would not get burned without the glass.

Why does a bonfire feel hotter than a match, even though both are at the same temperature (wood fire)? Why does the bonfire feel hotter the closer you get to it?

The amount of energy you receive from the fire (given the same temperature for all wood fires) is solely due to the solid angle the fire subtends with respect to yourself. When the solid angle subtended by the fire reaches pi (one hemisphere), your skin will be at the same temperature as the fire and you will be severely burned. This is why it is fatal to be overtaken by a crowning forest fire, even though the fire might be 20 to 30 meters overhead.

The concentrator increases the solid angle of the radiation (on a smaller surface), which causes the increase in temperature. It’s exactly the same as approaching the blackbody — either way the apparent solid angle is increased.

As I noted previously, you cannot change the apparent temperature of a blackbody by means of optical concentration of radiation. None of your examples show that happening.

I am the first to agree that the funnel does not alter the frequencies contained in the radiation. Hence the target acts in the same way as it would without the funnel, and it does not get warmed because the source is not warmer. You have confirmed that and we agree.

But my obvious point is that, if AGW proponents were correct about backradiation and (more or less) consider the effect relates only to the number of photons received, or the net radiation, then why wouldn’t the extra radiation warm the smaller object?

Their assumption that backradiation increases the rate of warming of the surface when it is already warming on a sunny morning is exactly equivalent to assuming the smaller target in my funnel experiment would get warmed by the net radiation from the larger source, even when that source was then left cooler.

Both scenarios violate the Second Law, now don’t they. You can’t have one and not the other.

I am the first to agree that the funnel does not alter the frequencies contained in the radiation. Hence the target acts in the same way as it would without the funnel, and it does not get warmed because the source is not warmer. You have confirmed that and we agree.

No, Doug, we don’t: The optical frequencies are irrelevent. What you haven’t grasped is that the radiant intensity per unit area is an invariant throughout a perfect optical system. (It can decrease passing through an inperfect system with losses.) It cannot be increased optically. Since this quantity is characteristic of a blackbody at a specific temperature, you can’t increase the apparent temperature of a blackbody by optics.

Your funnel thought experiment is meaningless, except as an exercise in geometrical optics. It has no relevance to the 2nd Law.

But my obvious point is that, if AGW proponents were correct about backradiation and (more or less) consider the effect relates only to the number of photons received, or the net radiation, then why wouldn’t the extra radiation warm the smaller object?

Because the radiant intensity per unit area hasn’t changed — so the image of the blackbody still acts like the original blackbody, but at a different distance. You CAN heat a colder object up — as in all of your examples in 132.1 — but you can’t heat a hotter object up.

It seems you think I agreed with the IPCC that the extra concentrated radiation would warm the smaller target which was at the same temperature as the source. Quite the opposite! I was just pointing out that AGW proponents are in effect claiming it would. See #135 which I hope provides sufficient explanation of what I am saying.

I am not claiming optical entendue is reduced at all. Optical entendue is a function of the area of the source and the solid angle subtended at the source by the target, or more precisely, by the “pupil” of the target which could be the first lens in an optical system such as a camera’s zoom lens system.

The funnel concentrates energy and more energy reaches the target than would do so without the funnel. That is my only point here, and I stand by such. Optical entendue is not reduced in the process – but energy is concentrated. These are quite different things.

Look Bob, all I meant was that you were confused about the point I was making. None of what you wrote is new to me, and I don’t disagree with any of it. We both agree a concentrator (funnel) sends more total energy to the target, but the target cannot be warmed above the temperature of the source, as the Second Law states. The target still “knows” the temperature of the source because the temperature information is carried in the peak frequency of the radiation, not in its amplitude. This peak frequency is in fact proportional to the absolute temperature, as is confirmed by Wien’s Displacement Law.

But my point is that, when “scientists” relate radiation to the Second Law, they seem always to consider two parallel plates at different temperatures radiating at each other. In such a case it is easy to just say, “Oh well, net radiation is clearly from hot to cold, so heat transfers from hot to cold, so all is OK.”

They are, in effect, considering the algebraic sum of positively and negatively directed radiation vectors, as if each were having an effect in transferring some amount of thermal energy.

But what happens if you can somehow filter out the radiation from the hotter body, so only the radiation from the cooler body reaches the hotter one? Or, what happens if you concentrate more radiation from the cooler body onto the hotter one? Then, if you calculate based on two-way radiation concepts, you can get the wrong answer, now can’t you?

So the Second Law of Thermodynamics for radiation can only be valid in all circumstances if your calculations only include the component of radiation from hot to cold.

This invalidates the atmospheric radiative greenhouse conjecture.

The way it must work is in fact the way Prof Claes Johnson has explained. Radiation from the cooler body merely resonates in the hotter one and cannot be converted to thermal energy. You cannot just apply mean absortivity factors which were calculated empirically from radiation from a hotter source. The effective absorptivity when the radiation from a cooler source strikes a warmer target must be zero.

The last paragraph confuses me. Does the hotter body “resonate” because the hotter body knows that the energy comes from a cooler body and chooses to resonate rather than heat up a little bit, or is it the energy from the cooler body that knows that it should only resonate the hotter body rather than heat it?

So on the one hand the hotter body, receiving exactly the same energy but from an even hotter body will know that it should heat up instead of “resonating”. Or if the energy from the cooler body instead encounters and even cooler body than the one from which it originated, it will know that it should heat the cooler body instead of resonating.

Radiation from the cooler body merely resonates in the hotter one and cannot be converted to thermal energy. You cannot just apply mean absortivity factors which were calculated empirically from radiation from a hotter source. The effective absorptivity when the radiation from a cooler source strikes a warmer target must be zero.

Find me a laboratory experiment which shows this. If this were true, lasers at room temperature would not be able to heat objects above room temperature. This is emphatically not true. Long wavelength IR lasers (at room temperature) have been used to vaporize materials deeply enough to create blackbody radiation that peaked at x-ray wavelengths.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics is obeyed in blackbody radiation exchanges because, according to Planck’s Law, the intensity of radiation increases with temperature — not because of some “Maxwell Demon” that magically causes absorption to cease based on the unknownable temperature of the source that emitted a particular EM quanta. (A quanta of any wavelength can be emitted by a source of any temperature, according to Planck’s Law.)

It is not enough just to say that the 2nd Law is followed IF radiation behaves this way — it is also followed if it behaves just like has been calculated by Planck’s Law and blackbody theory, as I have outlined above.

It is not enough just to say that there is no detectable GH effect from CO2 IF radiation behaves this way — it is likely that there is no detectable GH effect from CO2 HOWEVER radiation behaves, given the miniscule calculated effect and the probable existance of strong negative feedbacks.

Yes, simple application of Planck’s Law without due diligence places you among those whom I mentioned in the second paragraph in #135.

Now try your best to understand what I said about the fallacy in such thinking by reading the rest of that post #135.

And when you have a few hours to really study Computational Blackbody Radiation by Prof Johnson – and check the computations – as well as Observations on ‘Backradiation’ During Nighttime and Daytime by Prof Nahle – you’ll better understand the errors in the radiative greenhouse conjecture.

Meanwhile think about just how backradiation supposedly delays thermal energy coming out of the surface by diffusion, conduction, convection, evaporation and chemical processes. And just how it would actually foil other radiation coming out of the surface – all of this without transferring any heat from cold to hot.

But what happens if you can somehow filter out the radiation from the hotter body, so only the radiation from the cooler body reaches the hotter one? Or, what happens if you concentrate more radiation from the cooler body onto the hotter one? Then, if you calculate based on two-way radiation concepts, you can get the wrong answer, now can’t you?

If you can create a Maxwell Demon, all kinds of things become possible. Good luck (I mean it).

I would just add that, IMO, there is no definite proof that a Maxwell Demon is physically impossible, despite numerious attempts by many famous physicists. I hold with John Bell who said that “What impossibility proofs prove is a lack of imagination”.

Do you seriously think lasers emit at frequencies which are dependent upon the room temperature? Do you know anything about stimulated emission and the huge difference between it and the spontaneous emission we are talking about. Do you know that stimulated emission from a laser (generated artificially of course) causes stimulated emisison in the target, which means additional identical photons are produced which continue into the material in the same direction as the original beam. Thus they do not get scattered in random directions, but their energy has to be converted to thermal energy because they are still too weak to pass right through the material. (Sometimes they have to drill preliminary holes and fill them with special substances in order to cut some metal.)

None of this disproves what happens in spontaneous emission and normal absorption proceses. You are way off track.

There is ample empirical evidence for the Second Law, but the big mistake of climatologists is to think laboratory experiments can emulate atmospheric conditions. I have done my own open air experiments which I am refining and repeating for possible publication in some form later this year. They certainly show no effect from backradiation. A well-known Professor of Physics has published his which show the same, and he has more on the way which will take the world by storm http://principia-scientific.org/publications/New_Concise_Experiment_on_Backradiation.pdf

It’s obvious that you have an agenda to try to discredit me personally on public forums. If that is not the case, you are always welcome to email me privately and I undertake not to make public any such emails from you or anyone else.

You can always debate any details with me on Open threads at WUWT, but I will be posting less elsewhere now that I have handled a wide range of objections and gained a better understanding of how people like yourself have been misled by the AGW hoax, as indeed I was myself in the early stages until a year or two back.

I have been only half surprised, I guess, by the tendency of “scientists” to use formulae without a proper understanding of the prerequisites or limitations of such, and without a natural “feel” for physics which I guess I have developed somehow these last 50 odd years. Einstein sure was right when he said every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks he knows … but is mistaken.

My experience on forums will be the basis of a Q&A appendix in my book, but I won’t quote any names or exact comments.

Addendum: This* indicates that absorptivity is actually determined, not by any warming effect, but by measuring reflected radiation in the visible spectrum.

I am saying that absorptivity cuts out (ie goes to zero) when the source becomes cooler that the target, which of course is not the case by a long shot when making these measurements using much higher frequency radiation than that contained in all spontaneous radiation from the atmosphere.

Hence, for proponents of the radiative greenhouse conjecture to use such measures of absorptivity of light (which are close to unity) and thus to assume the surface absorbs “backradiation” is a complete abuse of physics.

Doug Cotton, if you bother to look back at older threads here, you’ll find that BobC is hardly a believer in AGW. You’d do better exchanging ideas with him by first removing the rather large chip resting upon your shoulder(S).

By the way, I am paying attention her as I’m sure others are too. This exchange is interesting and a great opportunity for others to learn. JoNova has already addressed the theory of “back radiation” and whether or not the 2nd law is violated.

I am aware (from a reliable source) that spectroscopy indicates that a gas does not absorb spontaneous emission from a source which is cooler than the gas, but the gas does start to absorb when the source is heated to a higher temperature than the gas. However, I cannot ascertain if there is a published paper on this.

Is anyone aware of published experiments of absorptivity which use sources of spontaneous emission which are themselves around 10 deg.C to -60 deg.C, like typical atmospheric temperatures, or ones such as the above spectroscopy one?

So you understand now that, for the frequencies which are common to both the source and the target, resonance can occur – up to the extent of the total energy in the radiation from the cooler body. So the net outward radiation is the area between the curves, which is what the Stefan-Boltzmann equation also tells us.

Do you seriously think lasers emit at frequencies which are dependent upon the room temperature? Do you know anything about stimulated emission and the huge difference between it and the spontaneous emission we are talking about.

Yeah Doug, I’ve been working with lasers since 1968 — how about you?

My point about the 10 micron wavelength lasers (which is the peak wavelength emitted by blackbodies at room temperature) being used to create plasmas hot enough to radiate in the xray region at their peak emission, was that it disproves that photon absorption magically cuts off at any wavelength below the peak emission wavelength of an absorbing black body, and shows that such absorption does produce thermal effects.

What the experimental evidence shows is that any black body absorbs all wavelengths all the time. The fact that a hot and cold blackbody can exchange radiation does not violate the 2nd Law of thermodynamics, since the NET energy flow is always from the hot (and more emissive) body to the cold (and hence less emissive, as shown by Planck’s Law) body.

I’ve asked you to explain what mechanism can possibly cause blackbody absorption to suddenly quit based either on absolute wavelength (disproved by the 10 micron laser example) or on the ensemble peak wavelength of the source, which you have ignored, since there is no such mechanism. In fact, there is no known or potential mechanism which can prevent the absorption of a photon based on the statistical charactistics of another group of non-absorbed photons. The concept requires non-local effects that have never been seen.

Do you know that stimulated emission from a laser (generated artificially of course) causes stimulated emisison in the target

Stimulated emission only occurs if there is a population of excited atoms or molecules which can support it. This is relatively difficult to achieve (why lasers weren’t built for 30 years after they were theoretically described) and this is not the case with random targets you aim a laser at. If the target contained the same material used in the laser, some of that material could be excited and participate in stimulated emission, but that would be a specific, not general, case. The Wikipedia article on this subject is fairly good.

Your statement:

None of this disproves what happens in spontaneous emission and normal absorption proceses.

seems to indicate that you think that there is a difference between a photon (or, lets use EM radiation, since photons are shorthand for imaginary objects, like “rays” in geometrical optics) that is produced by spontaneous emission and radiation produced by stimulated emission. I know of no experimental evidence of this and you haven’t supplied any.

I am aware (from a reliable source) that spectroscopy indicates that a gas does not absorb spontaneous emission from a source which is cooler than the gas, but the gas does start to absorb when the source is heated to a higher temperature than the gas. However, I cannot ascertain if there is a published paper on this.

If you can find this paper, and it says what you think it says, and it can be replicated — that would be paradigm shifting. I’m pretty familiar with spectroscopy (having a half-dozen patents in the field) and I know of nothing like this. This might be a misunderstanding of Correlation Spectroscopy, which has actually been used in satellite measurements of CO2 distribution in the atmosphere. The gases used in fluorescence spectroscopy (another label for the same thing) do not act as blackbodies, but have absorption coefficients that are specific for particular atomic or molecular energy transitions. CO2 acts this way — it only absorbs specific wavelengths in the IR. It will absorb any IR photon at the correct wavelength, however, regardless of whether it came from a hotter or cooler source.

I have been only half surprised, I guess, by the tendency of “scientists” to use formulae without a proper understanding of the prerequisites or limitations of such, and without a natural “feel” for physics which I guess I have developed somehow these last 50 odd years.

So, produce a specific theory of when Planck’s equation should be ignored and what replaces it. Then, we’ll test that theory. That’s the way progress is made, not by shifting verbal argumentation.

It’s obvious that you have an agenda to try to discredit me personally on public forums.

I was perfectly willing to be polite (even complimentary) until you became snotty (on a public forum) — a tone you have maintained (re, the next to last quote above). What goes around comes around. If you would like to hit the “reset” button, I would prefer a conversation in a friendly tone.

But my point is that, when “scientists” relate radiation to the Second Law, they seem always to consider two parallel plates at different temperatures radiating at each other. In such a case it is easy to just say, “Oh well, net radiation is clearly from hot to cold, so heat transfers from hot to cold, so all is OK.”

They are, in effect, considering the algebraic sum of positively and negatively directed radiation vectors, as if each were having an effect in transferring some amount of thermal energy.

This is, in fact, precisely what the theory says is happening. It is also, as far as I know, consistent with all laboratory experiments. You obviously think this is wrong, and there is no energy transfered from the cold plate to the hot plate.

Therefore, I suggest the following crucial experiment to determine the facts of the matter:

This link describes a university lab experiment on radiative cooling: A fairly large ceramic resistor with a thermistor thermally bonded to it is suspended by small wires in a bell jar, which is then evacuated. (If you don’t have access to a bell jar and vacuum pump, a large canning jar with a copper tube soldered through the lid can be fairly well evacuated by a cheap aspirator pump that attaches to a garden hose. An altimeter placed in the jar will verify the evacuation, and you’ll want a valve in the tube so you can shut the aspirator off when the jar is evacuated.)

The resistor is heated by current through the wires, then the current is turned off and the temperature decay measured over time. The (near) lack of air in the jar prevents heat loss by air convection, and the wires are small so as not to contribute much heat conduction.

For reasonable temperatures (e.g., don’t let the resistor get red-hot) the glass of the jar is opaque to almost all of the resistor’s blackbody radiation, and in fact is a pretty good blackbody itself. (If you want to make it better still, paint the inside with carbon-black paint.) The resistor is losing heat to the glass envelope by radiation. Throughout almost all of the experiment, the glass jar is colder than the resistor.

The crucial experiment is therefore to measure whether the resistor temperature decay curve speeds up when the glass jar is cooled or slows down when the glass jar is heated (but still kept colder than the resistor).

Standard blackbody theory says you will see a significant difference, your theory says you won’t.

You can use ice bags around the jar to cool it and perhaps a hair dryer to heat it (or perhaps just raise the room thermostat). There are some good ideas in the link about how to quantify and remove the residual effects of convection and conduction.

It is empirical data that ultimately tells us how the world behaves, not theory.

If your theory says that the presence of a colder blackbody will slow down the radiative heat loss from a warmer blackbody, then your theory also predicts a greenhouse effect, as that is all that is needed to produce it — backradiation from atmospheric CO2 slows down the rate of radiative heat loss of the Earth.

Just one clue – water vapour molecules are each more effective in setting up standing waves than carbon dioxide molecules, partly because they each do so for more separate frequencies. Multiply this by the ratio of their population in the atmosphere and you’ll see CO2′s effect is absolutely negligible compared with WV which has been around for a while, you know. And both absorb some incoming IR from the Sun and send some of that it back to space also – kind of like an upside-down greenhouse effect don’t you think?

Physics textbooks usually consider two identical plates radiating at each other. But modify the calculations for different sized plates with a connecting funnel and what do you think you get? Wrong results: results that can show heat transfer from cold to hot.

If you think laser beams in the UV are generated by heating the machine up to about the temperature of the Sun, or that radio transmissions require broadcast towers to be many degrees below freezing point, well you are entitled to your beliefs I guess.

How about talking about the real atmosphere from which I can detect no effect of the temperature of the ground by all the “backradiation” which is supposed to be about a quarter as powerful as the Sun at noon above the equator.

And how about talking about the backradiation carbon dioxide sends from solar IR back into space – thus cooling?

And how does backradiation slow down evaporation and diffusion (conduction) from the surface to the atmosphere.

And why wouldn’t evaporation and diffusion “make up the difference” even if the backradiation from all different angles and at lower frequencies somehow, by no known process, stops some of that outgoing radiation in its tracks, or at least dampens it even though it has different wavelengths?

Do you understand what stimulated emission actually is? Do you realise that “photons” arrive faster than the natural frequency at which they would be emitted spontaneously, so two identical photons are emitted in the same direction at once. Obviously the target can’t handle the second photon in each pair, so it goes into the target and has to be converted to thermal energy because the “doubled up” wave cannot all resonate.

In more detail, my hypothesis is that surplus energy above that which can resonate will be converted to thermal energy. So the laser beam, even a CO2 one, has plenty of surplus energy. And of course its power can be amplified artificially with a bit of electricity. So it very clearly is nothing like spontaneous emission coming from a bit of carbon dioxide gas. In no way does it debunk what I have been saying about spontaneous emission.

In regard to your thought experiment, you seem to think that my hypothesis does not give the same quantitative result in simple radiation situations which don’t have concentrators or special filters. It does, because it’s quantitative estimate of radiation is the area between the curves, which is exactly what correct application of S-B gives when you deduct the compensating term for the temperature of the opposing surface. So of course there will be more radiative flux when the temperature difference increases. This, by the way, is why there cannot be much radiation from Earth’s surface to the lowest layer of the air which may be less than 2 degrees cooler.

Set up bell jar and resistor the same. Set the current through the resistor so that it emits IR at the center frequency of co2 absorption. Run the test with the jar filled with normal air, jar evacuated and jar filled with 100% co2. It seems to me that would provide the data to settle once and for all the possibility of co2 caused back radiation.

Mark, who is disputing that CO2 radiates and some of that radiation hits the surface?

BobC and I just disagree about whether or not the energy in that radiation then gets converted to thermal energy so that it can help the Sun warm up the surface on a clear morning for example. We just need to foind a way to violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics to do this, don’t we?

Then we have to be sure the radiation slows down the rate of evaporation of the oceans later that day. BobC and the IPCC seem to know the answer, but I just can’t reconcile it with physics. Prof Julius Sumner-Miller (whose lectures I attended at Sydney University Physics Dept) used to ask (as on his TV shows) “Why is it so?”

Doug, it seems to me that in my proposed experiment the co2 “back” radiation would either convert to thermal at the resistor or it would not. In other words the reality (or falsehood) of back radiation causing warming.

I believe it is not necessarily a violation of the 2nd law for this back radiation to cause some thermal conversion. However that does not cause me to believe in AGW. Joanne believes co2 could cause SOME warming but at a much lower rate than the IPCC. I do not hold that same notion but I don’t argue with her. The point is there are several areas where the IPCC could be wrong and across the board, much of the science is not as “Well understood” as they tout.

Mark D @ 145:
That’s an interesting idea. The main problem would be that while the glass acts as a good blackbody in the IR, CO2 absorbs and emits only in a few narrow bands. So, the radiation from the glass would contain much more energy than from the CO2 and hence I would expect that you wouldn’t see much change due to the radiative effects of the CO2 (sort of like in the atmosphere!). In fact, the CO2 might just do the job of the glass in a small part of the spectrum and you would see no change at all. Making the jar from some IR transparent material like Germanium or Silicon would move the experiment out of the reach of the garage experimenter.

Also, the thermal conductivity of the gas would make a large change and you would have to find some gas with a similar conductivity, but no IR absorption bands to do a blank test. I’m not sure what that would be.

Doug Cotton @ 143:
Wow! Nothing I’ve said on this (or any other thread) could lead a rational person with normal reading comprehension to attribute to me the beliefs that you claim I have.

And, you apparently still favor the snarky style:

Do you understand what stimulated emission actually is?

Actually Doug, I can do the QM calculations that predict it — how about you? Nothing you say about stimulated emission in the rest of that paragraph is correct — I recommend once again you scan the Wiki page.

And lastly,Doug Cotton @144:
So, your hypothesis gives the exact same answer as the standard blackbody/Planck theory — except in cases of “special” filters and concentrators (which are Maxwell Demons) — in other words, the same results in all cases. Since there don’t appear to be any of these special demons involved in the Earth-atmosphere system, you must then get the same greenhouse effect that everyone else does.

I feel that this conversation has truly fallen through the looking glass.

I’m irresistibly reminded of Lewis Carroll’s poem “Haddock Eyes”
— (whose name is really called “The aged, aged man”
— or maybe “Ways and Means”
— but actually “A-Siting on a Gate”):
****************************I’ll tell thee everything I can:
There’s little to relate.
I saw an aged aged man,
A-sitting on a gate.
“Who are you, aged man?” I said,
“And how is it you live?”
And his answer trickled through my head,
Like water through a sieve.

He said “I look for butterflies
That sleep among the wheat:
I make them into mutton-pies,
And sell them in the street.
I sell them unto men,” he said,
“Who sail on stormy seas;
And that’s the way I get my bread –
A trifle, if you please.”

But I was thinking of a plan
To dye one’s whiskers green,
And always use so large a fan
That they could not be seen.
So, having no reply to give
To what the old man said,
I cried “Come, tell me how you live!”
And thumped him on the head.

His accents mild took up the tale:
He said “I go my ways,
And when I find a mountain-rill,
I set it in a blaze;
And thence they make a stuff they call
Rowlands’ Macassar-Oil –
Yet twopence-halfpenny is all
They give me for my toil.”

But I was thinking of a way
To feed oneself on batter,
And so go on from day to day
Getting a little fatter.
I shook him well from side to side,
Until his face was blue:
“Come, tell me how you live,” I cried,
“And what it is you do!”

He said “I hunt for haddocks’ eyes
Among the heather bright,
And work them into waistcoat-buttons
In the silent night.
And these I do not sell for gold
Or coin of silvery shine,
But for a copper halfpenny,
And that will purchase nine.

“I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,
Or set limed twigs for crabs:
I sometimes search the grassy knolls
For wheels of Hansom-cabs.
And that’s the way” (he gave a wink)
“By which I get my wealth–
And very gladly will I drink
Your Honour’s noble health.”

I heard him then, for I had just
Completed my design
To keep the Menai bridge from rust
By boiling it in wine.
I thanked him much for telling me
The way he got his wealth,
But chiefly for his wish that he
Might drink my noble health.

And now, if e’er by chance I put
My fingers into glue,
Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
Into a left-hand shoe,

Or if I drop upon my toe
A very heavy weight,
I weep, for it reminds me so
Of that old man I used to know–
Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow
Whose hair was whiter than the snow,
Whose face was very like a crow,
With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,
Who seemed distracted with his woe,
Who rocked his body to and fro,
And muttered mumblingly and low,
As if his mouth were full of dough,
Who snorted like a buffalo–
That summer evening long ago,
A-sitting on a gate.

For those who still don’t understand the relevance of the funnel experiment it is this: if (as is the case) the concept (and associated formulae) that you have been using does not give the right answer, even in one special case, then something is wrong with your concept.

No one has responded to all the various problem areas I have listed in #143 and I find it interesting that, whenever I mention these on various formats, no one has a valid explanation or counter argument.

Just one of these points would be sufficient to debunk the AGW models.

If you think you can prove me wrong on even one of these problem areas, then we can continue this discussion.

Those who are not familiar with stimulated emission may wish to note that a boson in a state can stimulate or induce another boson into the same state, causing an atomic transition. The atom can be induced to make a downward transition (emitting a photon) if the incoming light’s frequency matches the atomic transition energy. The incoming photon is a boson, and for this reason it stimulates the emission of a second photon in the same state, inducing an atomic transition.

If you think you can prove me wrong on even one of these problem areas [#143],

Sure:

And how about talking about the backradiation carbon dioxide sends from solar IR back into space – thus cooling?

Most of the energy the Sun gives to the Earth is in the visible (6000 deg K blackbody, peak emission ~500nm wavelength). Most of the energy the Earth radiates back to space is in the IR (~270 deg K blackbody, peak emission ~12 microns wavelength). Hence anything that interfers with the transmission of IR will affect the Earth’s cooling more than its heating.

It is generally accepted that the sum of solar UV and visible is about equal to its IR power. So near IR is about half the Sun’s insolation. Such near IR has a far greater warming effect (which is being blocked) than the much lower energy IR backradiation emitted by the atmosphere.

Hence anything that interfers with the transmission of IR will affect the Earth’s cooling more than its heating.

Wrong: The incoming IR has much more energy than the upwelling IR. Carbon dioxide (and water vapour) do absorb incoming solar radiation as shown on the above plot which I’m sure your spectroscopy could reproduce. Thus water vapour and carbon dioxide do send back to space at least half of what they absorb and this reduces the warming of the Sun in daylight hours. Calculations show it has a cooling effect more than 7 times the claimed warming effect, even though both are small. This also debunks the multiplying effect assumed for water vapour.

Well, actually Doug, your chart shows the majority of the incoming Solar energy in the visible and the vast majority in the visible plus the near IR (up to ~3 microns wavelength).

Such near IR has a far greater warming effect (which is being blocked) than the much lower energy IR backradiation emitted by the atmosphere.

Well, not really. Here is a plot (scroll down to fig 6) of CO2 absorption in the IR. Note that there are only two narrow bands where absorption occurs — just over 4 microns and at about 14 microns. Your plot of incoming Solar energy shows only a small amount of the power is near the 4 micron absorption band and you can’t even see (on the scale of the chart) anything at the 14 micron absorption band. CO2, therefore, intercepts a trivial amount of the incoming radiation — certainly not enough to have a measureable effect on the Earth’s warming rate.

Hence anything that interfers with the transmission of IR will affect the Earth’s cooling more than its heating.
Wrong: The incoming IR has much more energy than the upwelling IR. Carbon dioxide (and water vapour) do absorb incoming solar radiation as shown on the above plot

Straw man. If you look at this graph (scroll to bottom of page) comparing the blackbody spectra of a 6000 deg K blackbody (approximately the Sun) and an 300 deg K blackbody (~ room temperature), you can see that the solar spectrum is down to less than 1/100 of its peak energy at the 4 micron CO2 absorption band and is less than 1/10000 peak at the 14 micron band. Hence CO2 intercepts a trivial amount of the incoming solar energy.

On the other hand, the 300 deg K spectrum has its peak very close to the 14 micron CO2 absorption band. Hence CO2 has a much larger effect on the total outgoing energy than its effect on the total incoming energy.

Doug Cotton
February 24, 2012 at 1:34 pm ·
… The atom can be induced to make a downward transition (emitting a photon) if the incoming light’s frequency matches the atomic transition energy.

You don’t mention that the atom must be in an excited state for stimulated emission to happen — you can’t make a downward transition from the ground (i.e., lowest) state. Excited states are, in general, unstable and short-lived. The difficulty of maintaining a large population of atoms in an excited state is one reason the development of lasers took so long from their theoretical description to practice.

the atom must be in an excited state for stimulated emission to happen

Pretty obvious.

For the benefit of others who may not know this: with sufficient radiative power, earlier photons will do the initial exciting, and, if the frequency is high enough, the next photon arrives before spontaneous emission occurs from the excited state caused by the earlier photon. All of which demonstrates how far removed from spontaneous emission is this hard-to-generate artificially generated laser beam.

Now, back to the relevant issues from How about talking about the real atmosphere in #143.

Doug Cotton
February 24, 2012 at 2:50 pm · Replythe atom must be in an excited state for stimulated emission to happen
Pretty obvious.

For the benefit of others who may not know this: with sufficient radiative power, earlier photons will do the initial exciting, and, if the frequency is high enough, the next photon arrives before spontaneous emission occurs from the excited state caused by the earlier photon.

What’s pretty obvious is that you don’t know much about lasers. The excited state that supports stimulated emission must be relatively long-lived (it has to persist while waiting for a stimulating photon to arrive). Therefore it is not easy to excite an atom into this state by absorbing the same energy of photon that would be emitted — low probability of spontaneous emission (another way of saying the state is long-lived) equates to an equally low probability of absorption.

It’s a Catch-22: A state that was short-lived enough to be efficiently excited optically would be too short-lived to achieve a population inversion of excited atoms and thus couldn’t support laser action.

Thus the scenario you outline above (and have mentioned elsewhere) is extremely inprobable and accounts for a trivial amount of the interaction of laser-generated light with matter and is irrelevant to the actual observed effects of lasers.

Actual lasers are always pumped to higher energy states (by higher energy photons or other means) which decay to the long-lived state that supports stimulated emission. Again, Wikipedia is a good resource for those who want actual knowledge about these things.

In my funnel experiment, the net radiative flux can be in the opposite direction to heat flow, and so only the radiation from the warmer body to the cooler one has any effect.

Radiation from a cooler source is rejected and the end result is the same as if it had undergone diffuse reflection. Any amount of radiation from a cooler source can be rejected and there will be no effect on the normal spontaneous outward radiation from the warmer target.

The absorptivity of a warmer surface receiving low energy radiation from a cooler atmosphere must be zero as I have proved with simple logic based on my funnel experiment. You cannot produce empirical evidence to support the values of absorptivity assumed in IPCC models for this radiation to the surface. That is the end of the matter and the end of the radiative greenhouse effect.

Note the reference to most of the infra-red being absorbed by the atmosphere.

Clearly that in the visible spectrum is by no means “most” of the energy. For a start, the UV, X-rays etc have much higher energy than light as you all must know. So the atmosphere has a significant cooling effect during daylight hours, and water vapour has a net negative feedback partly because of this absorption and also due to reflection off clouds.

Seeing that backradiation does not affect climate in any way, there is no way WV could have a positive feedback as assumed by IPCC, thus amplifying CO2 effects they claim.

There simply cannot be an atmospheric radiative greenhouse effect without violating the Second Law of Thermodynamics, as I have proved on my website, and also because every ray of radiation has to be treated as a separate process.

There is no physical meaning associated with, and no physical entity corresponding to “net” radiation. Radiation rays do not combine like, for example, force vectors.

A warm body will not absorb any radiation from a cooler source, no matter how much of such radiation is sent in its direction, as shown in my funnel experiment. And all such radiation has no effect on the normal spontaneous outgoing radiation, let alone the heat loss by evaporation and diffusion followed by convection.

Doug Cotton
February 25, 2012 at 3:00 pm · Reply
In my funnel experiment, the net radiative flux can be in the opposite direction to heat flow, and so only the radiation from the warmer body to the cooler one has any effect.

I got the (apparently, wrong) impression from your post #134.2 that you understood that your funnel thought experiment could not change the net radiative flux. Re-read my explanation in post #132 about why no optical concentrator (funnel, lens, or whatever) can change the net radiative flux from the object being concentrated and hence cannot change the apparent flux from a blackbody or its apparent temperature. The concentrated light will interact with the cooler (or hotter) object exactly like the light from the original object, if it was at a nearer distance, but smaller in extent. This is completely independent of the spectrum of the object(s).

The absorptivity of a warmer surface receiving low energy radiation from a cooler atmosphere must be zero as I have proved with simple logic based on my funnel experiment.

You have completely misinterperted the effect of an optical concentrator, as shown above. Hence, your funnel experiment would have null result because the net radiative fluxes would be unchanged, not because of some magical loss of absorptivity of the hotter object.

You cannot produce empirical evidence to support the values of absorptivity assumed in IPCC models for this radiation to the surface.

So, why don’t you try the experiment outlined in post #142? If that experiment shows that the nearby presence of a colder object slows the radiative cooling of a hotter object (for whatever reason), then it also shows the essence of the greenhouse effect. Remember, the basis for the greenhouse effect is that radiation scattered/re-emitted from CO2 in the atmosphere will effectively reduce the rate at which the Earth’s surface loses energy by radiation. Whether this happens because the hotter object receives energy from the cooler one (as predicted by Planck’s Law and QM), or whether some magical adjustment happens that results in the hotter object emitting less radiation (in violation of Planck’s Law) as you claim makes no difference.

You have already admitted (post #144) that the hotter object would cool down more slowly in the presence of the cooler one, so you have effectively admitted that the greenhouse effect exists.

An interesting correlation between CO2 and population is that a population rise of 1 billion people equates to 20ppm(approx) increase in CO2 (using NOAA CO2 data and United Nations data on population).
Considering that the majority of population rise has been/is in less developed part of the world (again UN data) this is curious.

The funnel experiment does not depend on any violation of etendue. The whole thing is sealed off at the ends by the plates themselves, hence the whole hemisphere of radiation from each plate is trapped and most will be reflected towards the other plate. Etendue considerations are not relevant here as it is not a simple optical system as is a prerequisite for such theory to apply. Clearly there is more radiation from the large plate as its temperature is only a little less than the cooler plate, but its area much greater.

Of course the temperature difference and the amount of thermal energy transfer between hot and cold is determined by the temperatures of the hot and cold objects, being less when the temperatures get closer. This is pretty basic physics.

My hypothesis produces this same result for radiation in all circumstances, whereas SBL does not for the funnel. That does not however affect the natural adiabatic lapse rate of the atmosphere which is a function of the acceleration due to gravity. Even the IPCC gave up on promulgating the type of argument you are still putting forward – due to lack of empirical evidence.

What they talk about now is backradiation transferring thermal energy to the surface. Check out their website. I’m not here to discuss arguments they themselves have already rejected.

The funnel experiment does not depend on any violation of etendue. The whole thing is sealed off at the ends by the plates themselves, hence the whole hemisphere of radiation from each plate is trapped and most will be reflected towards the other plate. Etendue considerations are not relevant here as it is not a simple optical system as is a prerequisite for such theory to apply. Clearly there is more radiation from the large plate as its temperature is only a little less than the cooler plate, but its area much greater.

Etendue is conserved here Doug. A less jargony way of putting it is to note that all light emitted from the narrow end will eventually find it’s way to the large end, but light emitted from the large end at an angle greater than some limiting angle determined by the slope of the funnel sides and the length of the funnel will be reflected back before reaching the narrow end. Hence, the assumption that all the light from the large end reaches the narrow end is false. The reason this happens is that a ray starting at some initial angle from the axis will gain 2 x the funnel wall angle with each reflection. After enough reflections, that angle will exceed 90 degrees and the ray will return to the large end. If you do a detailed calculation, you will find that there is no funnel configuration that can achieve the net transfer you assume, and hence there is no reason to hypothesize a blackbody interaction other than the one described by Planck’s Law.

I said “most” – ie more than 50%. A slight outward slope near the top can start low angle radiation on a downward path. The larger plate can be any number of times bigger than the small one, so “most” will be more than the total which the small plate emits, and that is all that is needed to prove my point.

But, in any event, radiation which goes back to the large plate will not be absorbed and converted to thermal energy because the source and target are at the same temperature. Hence it will resonate and be scattered and, eventually, reach the smaller plate.